by Donald Lind

Created on: January 30, 2011

“State-of-the-art visuals meets an eight-bit script”

It’s fitting that “TRON: Legacy” begins its story with a digital world discovered from a videogame.  Because the movie itself plays out very much like a videogame: some spectacular action set pieces that play within the rules of any type of fighter platform.  Even, the more dialogue-heavy scenes are reminiscent of cut-scenes from some games.  But that’s not entirely fair; some videogame cut scenes are better written and acted.

With that said, the filmmakers who have resurrected the cult favorite from the early 1980s should count themselves lucky that they have crafted amazing, beautifully dazzling visual effects (and a rocking soundtrack).  Otherwise, on the merits of the script and some bizarre performances, this attempt to turn “TRON” into a franchise would be outdated like a “Space Invaders” arcade game, except not nearly as fun.  Thankfully, the action, visuals and overall experience is very entertaining; as bad and derivative as the story can be, the film still manages to find its sense of fun and allow the audience to get lost in its adventure.

The head of Encom Technology, makers of the famous “TRON” arcade game, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) mysteriously vanished more than 20 years ago.  His now-adult son Sam (Garrett Hedlund, “Country Strong,” “Death Sentence”) has spent the last two decades pretty much in limbo, like his missing father.  He spends his nights messing with the high tech of Encom, which is technically now his own company, while simultaneously evading the police in death-defying stunts.  One night, though, Sam’s father’s old confidant Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, TV’s “NCIS”) informs Sam of a that he received a pager message (imagine that, a pager!) from Flynn’s office at his old arcade.

A skeptical Sam investigates the arcade and stumbles unto the secret project his father was working on when he vanished: the Grid; an alternate dimension where digital code can take on a life of its own.  But in the 20 years since Flynn’s disappearance, the Grid has transformed into one of those hedonistic cyber dystopias found in most futuristic science fiction.  The Grid is now ruled with an iron fist by CLU (Bridges), a digital doppelganger of Flynn’s younger self.  It was actually CLU that lured Sam to the

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