Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #91: Six-String Samurai (1998)

Post-apocalyptic wasteland U.S.A, taken over by the Russians! Vegas is one of the only cities left standing, and if you want to make it anywhere, it'll have to be there. But it's tough to get in. Tougher to survive the walk. Our stoic hero is a rockabilly guitar-picker who's decided to make for his fame and fortune.

Packing little beyond his guitar, a torn umbrella to shield himself from the hot desert sun, and a fucking samurai sword to defend himself against Russian raiders, he sets out across the arid land. Oh, and Death is literally after him. Death and a bunch of his evil henchmen. This is a winning concept, but the ultimate result is a little on the underwhelming side. I found myself bored more than once, which usually means that I need a gang to watch the movie with, and some sake.

If you can set up that kind of situation, also be prepared for wretched acting, camp dialogue, breakout gypsy-punk sequences, and sword duels that sometimes manage to be pretty stylish.

So: Could have been the best movie ever, but doesn't get too far along that track.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #90: Tron: Legacy

Called Legacy to force some kind of dignity onto the project, Disney honestly will not give up on this franchise until people accept it and acknowledge that Disney was right all along, and that Tron is actually really cool.

If I can be outrageously generalising for this one, critics almost unanimously write that Tron: Legacy is pointlessly thin. Thin on plot, thin on character, thin on cultural significance. And half of them end off their reviews by saying that they thought it was pretty cool.

That's pretty much what we've got on our hands with this one - a movie that doesn't go very far to inspire or engage or even give you any thrills you haven't seen before in some shape or form, but is pretty cool, dude. It has its moments of "that technology is absolutely impossible" ridiculousness, and dramatic scenes that try too hard and mostly fall flat, but the overwhelming buzzy neon electro-music-video vibe, when combined with the full might of Daft Punk's original soundtrack, cannot be stopped.

Olivia Wilde is good, and her character is certainly the most fun to root for and watch at work. And I don't mean to say that it's because of eye-candy; her costume is strangely modest, given the norm in this sort of flick. I was very surprised to find that her role was refreshingly unsexualised. There's a shade of sexual tension, but her tender fascination with the boring lead male is understandable, given that he's the son of the dude that created her people's universe, and indeed just arrived from beyond it.

They've made Jeff Bridges look 20 years younger for some scenes through the magic of our favourite strategy: CGI. While awkward at points, it can be overlooked once everybody's in the electro-world. In the digital environment, a slightly rubbery face kind of suits Jeff Bridges.

The 3d effects, surprisingly, don't try to slap you in the face with cheap pop-outs, but stays pretty low key and keeps to background atmosphere. The decision to keep most of 3d stuff for the 'in the computer' environment is a smart one, and works to make the 3d tech an aesthetic choice rather than just a barefaced gimmick.

So: One of the coolest Daft Punk videos I've seen.