'TRON : LEGACY' - archive from 30th December 2010.

'TRON : LEGACY'  - saw it last night - and you should too if you missed seeing it on the big screen back in 2010. 28 years and US$170M in the making, 64 days to shoot, 68 weeks post production, this is the follow up to Disney's 1982 cult classic. Back then when computers and video games were just beginning to get introduced to our lives, the fist instalment was made for a mere US$17M and grossed just US$33M. Hardly a smash hit, but the years have been kind to that film and so now we have a long awaited sequel. Following on from the US$400M Box Office haul of this film Disney announced 'Tron : Destiny' and went into pre-production posting a 3 minute teaser trailer on YouTube in November 2014, but in March 2015 announced they were now not progressing, claiming it was never greenlit anyway. C'est la vie!

In 1989 software engineer, builder of video-games and CEO of ENCOM International Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) disappeared leaving his young son behind. Fast track twenty years and that young son is now 27 years of age, and is the primary shareholders of the company his father left behind. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is asked by an ENCOM Executive to investigate a signal coming from a deserted video arcade owned by his father. As Sam investigates the empty building he comes across a hidden basement housing a large computer. Messing about with the computer (as you would) he is transported to 'The Grid' - a virtual reality world that was created by his father and which exists within ENCOM's mainframe.

Pulled into the same world in which his father has been trapped for twenty years, early on Sam is captured and drawn into 'The Games' where he is forced to fight a masked programme called Rinzler (Bruce Boxleitner), who realises when Sam lies injured and bleeding, that he is a human user and so takes him to CLU (Codified Likeness Utility - Jeff Bridges in younger form) - The Grid's ruling programme. In a light cycle match CLU takes out Sam and nearly kills him, before being rescued by Quorra (Olivia Wilde) who is an apprentice of Flynn and knows of his whereabouts in a hideaway outside of CLU's reach.

As father and son are reunited, Kevin reveals to Sam that over the years he has been working on a perfect computer system with CLU and Tron (also Bruce Boxleitner). What unfolds thereafter is the reason why Flynn the elder became trapped in The Grid, how Sam was lured into The Grid for ulterior motives, and what the Flynn's must do to save themselves and escape back to the real world through a portal that is closed, and can only be opened with Kevin's identity disc. Of course things get more complicated and more dangerous before they get better with the Flynn's battling it out against CLU, with Sam and Quorra getting back through the portal to the other side before it is again closed . . . but as for Kevin Flynn, you'll just have to watch for yourself!

'Tron : Legacy' is up there with 'Avatar' - a Sci-Fi epic that is a visual & aural feast. Directed by Joseph Kosinski this has amazing visuals, a storyline that stacks up, and a kick-ass sound track from Daft Punk. This movie does not disappoint & rewrites the rule book on all future Sci-Fi wannabes. From the House of the Mouse - see it soon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-