Tron: Legacy

And now, we have another belated sequel to an iconic 80’s film. The original Tron came out in 1982, and was a pioneer in the use of CGI effects. Now that CGI technology has advanced, we have a sequel, Tron: Legacy, to show it off.

In the previous film, programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was trapped inside the computer generated world of The Grid. With the help of his digital likeness, CLU, and the heroic program Tron (Bruce Boxleitner), Flynn defeated the villains, both real and digital, and escaped with his life.

Some time later, however, Flynn found himself back in The Grid, this time indefinitely.

And now, his grown-up son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) has arrived in The Grid. He’s forced to compete in gladiator games by a despotic dictator, who’s none other than CLU himself. With the help of Quorra (Olivia Wilde), Sam escapes the ring and finds his father. Together, they must get back to reality and thwart CLU’s scheme to do the same.

This is a film where story plays second fiddle to visual effects. Aside from the digital environment, the film’s strongest effect is the de-aging of Bridges into CLU and a younger Kevin Flynn, reverse Benjamin Button style. Its first-time director, Joseph Kosinski, directed a few video game commercials prior to this, so he certainly knows what he’s doing.

Available in both 3-D and flat screen formats, this film is definitely suited for the former. The film opens by warning the audience that a few scenes were shot in 2-D. So that when the “good stuff” comes on, it’ll certainly stand out for them as it did for me.

On the down side, the script could have certainly been improved a bit. For instance, CLU’s goal is to get to the real world, but then comes the question “then what?” The lack of answer for that question doesn’t really add much needed tension to the narrative. But yet, for a visual and audio extravaganza, Tron: Legacy certainly delivers on both counts.