I was a big Tron fan when I was a little kid. I missed it in the theater but when it came on the Disney Channel the thought of it ruled my life. I worked out a whole special bed time with my mom on the night that it was to come and I made sure I was home early from an awesome birthday party so I could be on the floor in front of the TV to see all the magic on the screen. Then, about 10 minutes in, I fell asleep as a day filled with diving from high dives tuckers little guys out. My Dad stayed up and watched it and wasn’t impressed. He made me pretty mad when he dissed the lightcycles. It might have been my first frustration with people ‘just not getting it.’ When I finally saw Tron I was just as delighted as I had expected to be. Now comes Tron Legacy, the long awaited sequel awaited by people like me who plugged into the original. Because of how relatively few of us there were (mostly because kids like me couldn’t afford movie tickets back in the day) there were many predictions of failure. I kept the faith as it looked absolutely badass. I wasn’t wrong.

Tron Legacy takes place 27 years after the original. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) now runs Encom but has been missing for 20 years leaving the company in the hands of unscrupulous businessmen and his son Sam in the hands of his parents. Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) is still on the board trying to keep the company from the dark side as it were but his more altruistic ideas are shot down consistently. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) has turned his back on the company and makes yearly cyber-attacks on it just to mess with them but by and large he has become bitter and careless. When Alan shows up to tell Sam he received a page from Flynn’s Arcade where the phone lines have been off for 20 years, everything changes. Sam goes down to check it out and inadvertently finds himself sucked into the digital world of the grid like his Dad all those years ago. He is quickly identified as a User and is brought face to face with the new master control program…and it looks like his father from 27 years ago. Sam quickly learns that all is not well on the Grid and that he needs to find a way out as quickly as possible. Help comes from a helpful and enormously hot Program named Quorra (Olivia Wilde) who takes him to his father who has been trapped in the grid for 20 years. The three must figure out how to defeat this new master control program, CLU 2, and get Sam and Kevin out of the Grid for good. It will not be easy.

So right off the bat, the movie kind of jumps right in and while there is some back story given, there isn’t a lot of time spent on the events of the first Tron so new comers might have to play a bit of catch up here. That being said, it has been a few years since I have seen the first movie, long enough for some details to get fuzzy and I found Tron Legacy to be strong enough to stand on its own. The story construction here is straightforward enough that I think people who haven’t seen the first movie will be just fine.

And lets be honest, in a general sense, most people aren’t showing up to Tron Legacy for the story. They are going for the special effects, action, 3D and general spectacle. And these are the areas Tron delivers on the most, to varying degrees. The movie looks absolutely gorgeous. The effects and graphics have been amped up to such a ridiculous degree from the first movie (as one would imagine after so many years) that people watching them back to back are going to feel like they are going from an 80’s arcade game to Uncharted 2 for the PS3 which is essentially what is happening given how entrenched in the world of video games these movies are. Everything looks awesome from the new costume design to the lightcylces and other new vehicles. Even the data discs the programs use as their primary weapons look far less like glow in the dark Frisbees and look like much more badass light up Frisbees. Not as cool as a light saber but they rank.

Probably the most impressive effect used in the film is the de-aging technology they use on both Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner (in a flash back featuring Tron from the first picture). The technology looks great. The proof of concept teaser they released years ago at Comic con showed off the technique and it looked alright for what it was but the way it looks in the movie is phenomenal. They manage to skirt the uncanny valley but it looks pretty much perfect. It would be one thing if it was just in the game world where things look all teched up and surreal but its implementation in the ‘real world’ at the beginning of the movie also looked great. It is kind of crazy to think what filmmakers could do with this technology in the future and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lucas use it in some way for Star Wars actors who are too old to reprise their roles for future movies.

The 3D was okay. It wasn’t mindblowing and didn’t make or break the experience but it was pretty cool to see in the game world. The movie opens with a disclaimer that some of the film was shot in 2D and the rest in 3D. The 2D segments are basically whenever the characters are in the real world and the 3D segments take place on the game grid. This is a cool Wizard of Oz move that I appreciated but, despite the fact that this was shot on 3D cameras a generation above the ones used for Avatar, the 3D doesn’t come close to being as awesome as that effect was. So I don’t think you would REALLY be missing out on anything if you saw this in 2D but the 3D isn’t bad and I felt alright ponying up the extra cash.

Talking about technology is all well and good but the story has some bearing on the enjoyment. It is fine to see pretty and awesome things but if they are just doing nonsense then it all falls flat. The story here is engaging enough and gets into some existential meditations on the nature of creation and free will. These don’t go too deep to distract but add depth and flavor to what could have been a throwaway story. That being said, the ending feels a little muddled and was less satisfying than I had hoped for. It isn’t enough to derail the whole experience but it could have gone down better.

The performances were good across the board. Jeff Bridges does a great job with double duty as Flynn and CLU. Flynn has gained a bit of sage like wisdom but will still throw in some ‘cool’ and ‘man’ in to let you know he is the same hip guy from the first film. CLU is single minded and driven and while he is ruthless you get the sense it is less from ‘evil’ or ‘meanness’ and more from a deep sense of hurt and fear. He was programed to do a job and do it perfectly and finds himself replaced by imperfection so he is doing what he is programed to do. Garret Hedlund acquits himself nicely in a role that is much less interesting than any of the others mostly by design. He is damaged and reckless but is generally a straight forward hero-type. Hedlund is believable and never gets whiny or self-righteous. Even when he fucks everything up he handles it the way a strong character would and that is nice to see. Olivia Wilde is great as Quorra and really brings out that characters naivety and curiosity while also managing to be strong and convince that she is a force to be reckoned with. She is also desperately hot. Probably the only misstep here was whatever the hell it was Michael Sheen thought he was doing. I realize he was supposed to be funny and quirky but in a world of deadpan characters he stands out like a sore thumb and it feels very forced and unnatural. Also if you want David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust from the 70s then hire him and use the de-aging process on him instead of handing us a cheap knock off.

Conclusion [9.0 out of 10]

There are going to be people who think a 9.0 is going to be high but if you are a Tron fan or a fan of really awesome special effects and existential philosophy I think you will agree with me. It is a fun and exciting ride that offers some things to think about when it didn’t have to. Also Olivia Wilde is super hot. Again, I was solidly in the target audience category here so you should adjust the score accordingly if you aren’t but I still think that even people who weren’t fans of the first can find things to love here.