The uniquely incandescent clothing of characters, vehicles, et al, is what initially lured me into watching Tron: Legacy. I was in the mood for such a rawly reduced presentation of form and light. The film prioritized special effects, and was artful in a stylistic sense. But every action of the characters seemed to be covered with a nonchalantness that didn't allow for a lurid enough presentation for the viewer to digest as meaningful.
However, the saving grace of the film is the female character Quorra, who is the love interest in the plot. Tron Legacy was plagued by all the typical modern Hollywood annoyances: Characters with overly terse speech, a plot choked out by excessively long action scenes, but Quorra offered some relief.
Quorra is a human-like program within the game who has mysteriously acquired a special evolutionary development which other human-like programs don't have. She takes a liking to the main character, Sam Flynn. She displays natural behavior that girls often exhibit when they're around guys they like. These include viewing from afar, giving a lot of eye contact, and prioritizing being together with him. These are innocent female behaviors that Hollywood seems to have tacitly banned in other films. Her damsel in distress quality is heightened by the fact that her life consists of the dark gray drudgery of her cyberworld. In a way, her position of situational weakness and innocence really heightens her ability to love because worldliness and manipulations are absent and unable to block her longing. In spite of her weakness and innocence she is still a smart, strong woman. It is a amazing that a female character who exemplifies feminine virtues such as purity and self-sacrifice squeaked through the Hollywood feminist screen.
Her love-interest, Sam, could have been a little more into her, and the paradigm of her being a computer program sort of gets in the way of a nicer love story. It would have been better if he showed a liking to her earlier in the film. Only when Sam's father avers her equivalence to humanity does he seem to appreciate her. Apparently he is not susceptible to the "indefinable charm of weakness" Oscar Wilde spoke of in women, which Olivia Wilde's character Quorra displays. Anyway, [Spoiler Alert] in the end, she saves Sam, and Sam saves her. Is such a story not the whole point of romantic love? Perhaps a going theme of the movie could be that true love stands alone.
The dynamic of Kevin Flynn and Quorra both being partial yet different creations of Sam's father is interesting as well; almost as if they are his unrelated children of his. The movie will explain why this is so... It is interesting how their romance evolves from a side-issue to almost being the main thing at the end of the movie. But even at the end, it is presented in a sort of distant nonchalantness that pervades the film. Maybe it's supposed to be representative of the indifference people have toward things in a video game world, where one "dies" as often as every minute.
Another theme could be that certain life situations are worth risking it all to escape from. The American Revolutionaries did this in the Revolutionary War. Many people undergo life-threatening surgeries and treatments to get out of horrifying illnesses. This sort of scenario occurs in Tron Legacy.
As a final note, the soundtrack was handled by the House/Techno group Daft Punk. The music often felt like it was building up to something which it never got to, but overall it seemed to fit well with the film.
Ultimately, if you're looking for a movie that doesn't command much but delivers in a few small ways, as in the glow in the dark designs and nonchalant, yet severe damsel in distress element, then Tron Legacy is worth watching.
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