SCI-FI ACTION; 2hr 5min
STARRING: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde
Gamesmanship: from left, Bridge and Hedlund
Film-maker Steven Lisberger’s 1982 sci-fi flick Tron, about a master computer-game creator (Bridges as Kevin Flynn) who disappears into his digital world, came and went without much fanfare, then snuck slowly into cult status. Director Joseph Kosinski’s sequel takes up 20 years later with Kevin’s 27-year-old son Sam (Hedlund), who never knew what became of his father, sucked into Kevin’s gaming grid for a sensational escapade. Trapped inside a glassy, black-and-white technosphere, Sam battles tyrannical mastermind Clu (a digitised Bridges), a younger and far chillier version of Kevin who created him for the greater good, only to have everything go horribly wrong.
Rescued from a potentially sticky fate by elfin fighter Quorra (Wilde), Sam is reunited with his older and sadder — but still unshakably cool — dad. With their exit-time running out, Sam must either save Kevin from his demonic double or risk imprisonment in electronic limbo, albeit a monumentally streamlined one. For Tron: Legacy is high-tech heaven, a dazzle of mind-bending images and effects moulded sleekly around a ripper quest and grounded by the Zen calm of Bridges and the deeper theme of a father–son reunion. It’s game on, full-on and way, way out there.
