Tron Legacy

First, some shiny new information for Disney. A Legacy computer system is a bit of wheezing, crotchey old kit that you've still got running because you haven't the time and resources to replace it with something better. Or maybe they do already know that.

So. It's the eighties, and Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from Tron has won control of the computer company in Tron, and is now going about exploring and improving the digital world he's discovered. He tells his young son that he's made a huge wonderful discovery, which he will tell him about tomorrow. He then disappears, to nobody's particular surprise. Except his son's apparently, but the kid's about seven, so presumably hasn't seen many films yet.

Cut to the future, and the computer company has become a sort of cross between Microsoft and Apple, and the kid is a feckless ne'er-do-well who nominally owns the company but doesn't do much other than occasionally sabotage its efforts. He then recieves a page on his dad's old friend's pager, inviting him to his dad's offices. He goes, and through a series of nonsense, is zapped into the digital world.

Once there, he is taken for a rogue program, forced to fight in some games, escapes on a light bike, and discovers that he needs to go to a distant portal to uplink and get back to the real world. Attempting to stop him is a rogue program controlling the digital world.

In short, it's Tron, Again. The film really doesn't know whether it wants to be a sequel or a remake. The rogue program, Clu, is based on Kevin Flynn, and is basically a fork of his consciousness that's supposed to be running things while Flynn is in the real world, but which develops ideas and ambitions of its own.

Which brings us on to the effects. The big showpiece effect is the digitally rejuvenated Jeff Bridges. In the world, we have Old Jeff Bridges playing Flynn, and Creepy Digital Puppet Young Jeff Bridges as Clu. It's by no means a perfect representation, but you'd be able to accept it as Clu is *supposed* to be an imperfect simulation of Flynn, except for the fact the other programs are inhuman only inasmuch as they have white makeup and heavy eyeliner.

The whizzy lightbike etc effects are, sadly, somewhat less interesting than the Rotoscoped originals in Tron. In that in Tron, this was an entirely new and arresting vision, whereas the effects in Tron Legacy are just a bit of neon on black, and nothing particularly different or surprising.

So, suffering from the same leaden pace as Tron did originally, and making no more sense of the "hang on, an eighties mainframe is simulating each program running on it as an apparently living breathing humanoid?" thing, I can really only say that this film is no more necessary or welcome than The Matrix Reloaded. Nominally better effects, but just a pale retread, best ignored.