After 28 years, a sequel to the 1982 “Tron†movie is now in theaters. In this one Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a 27 year old who has not heard from or seen his father since that faithful night years ago when he was just a young boy and his father disappeared. Sam never found out what happened to his father, and it has remained a mystery to both him and the rest of the world.
Sam now grown holds the majority share of stocks in the video game company his father made famous. He is a rebel, and does not like that the corporate heads that now run his dad’s successful gaming & software company, charge fees for anything new they develop. So he constantly sabotages their work, so that it is accessible to everyone for free. One night his dad’s close friend tells him that he got a page from his father, which is strange because the number used has been out of service for years. He tells Sam to go to his dad’s old video game arcade to see if he can find any clues as to what happened to Kevin so many years ago. When Sam discovers a hidden room in the back of the arcade with computers in it, he knows that this must be the secret work that his father was working on so many years ago. He turns on the computer and is zapped into a digital world. There he finds that his father has been trapped in this world for the past 20 years. It turns out that his father’s main program, CLU (Jeff Bridges) has turned against him and has taken over the cyber universe. With the help of his dad’s warrior friend Quorra (Olivia Wilde), Sam is determined to get himself and his dad back to the world they know. CLU on the other hand, has plans of his own as he intends to bring the cyber world to the real world and take over. Can Sam help his dad escape the world he created, so many years ago? Or will CLU, who is now the sole ruler of the cyber world trap Sam there as well, as he prepares his own plan of world domination.
Now when I saw the original “Tron†back in 1982, I was impressed by the computer graphics in the movie which for back then were way ahead of their time. I have to say that this new feature is just as impressive, but not by much. Yes the graphics are way more dynamic and sharper than they were so many years ago, but that wasn’t the problem I had with this movie. Just like in the original, I felt that there should have been way more use of the technology as far a battle scenes and action. This one did have a bit more action in it, but it still was kind of a not what I expected. They basically did the ring battle again, and also the light cycle battle was also recycled, excuse the pun. There was definitely money spent on the graphics in this one as there was in the first. They used CGI technology to make Jeff Bridges look young again throughout the whole movie and I’m sure that cost a pretty penny. They added a whole new look to the cyber world in this one, which was visually stunning, but didn’t enhance my enjoyment of the movie. There were a couple of new vehicles added, or enhanced in this new version. The transformation for the cycles was way better than in the original, and they also had some cool gliders that were added. All in all, it wasn’t much of a change from the original, just a different storyline. I felt this movie only deserved 2 microchips out of 4. They could have just remade the original with newer graphics and more action, and would have been suffice. The movie runs 2 hour and 7mins. It’s rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and brief mild language. It was written by Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, Brian Klugman, and Lee Sternthal from source material by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. It was produced by Idealogy, Inc., Grid Productions.
If you ever find yourself in cyber space, don’t worry your probably just on the internet. Ezo
Next movie review: TBD
