I can’t say that I was the biggest Tron fan way back in 1982 but when I saw the film on video way back when,

I was hooked and perhaps my inner geek was born when I saw Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn get sucked into the Grid and then subjected to play its games from the, what I would call, frisbee games, to my all-time favourite the light cycle races.

So when I heard that they were going to do a sequel to Tron, I was excited but not sure what would be the plot. Back in 1982 the visuals were stunning and very impressive for the time and to think that they predicted touch-screen technology, forward thinking.

Tron Legacy lives up to the visuals of its predecessor and takes it to overdrive.

I saw the film in IMAX 3D and it was really worth it. From the moment that Kevin’s son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) gets sucked into the Grid, we are greeted with familiar vehicles. Some improvements were made of course to the actual suits the programs wear and the disks that each sport on their back has been improved as well.

The basic plot of Tron Legacy is that Kevin Flynn (Bridges) disappeared for 20 years and has left his son, Sam, an orphan. Now 27, Sam is the majority stakeholder of Encom, the company to which Kevin was CEO, somehow, Kevin’s former colleague, Alan (Bruce Boxleitner -from the original Tron) receives a page from Kevin that came from Kevin’s arcade.

To find out what is going, Sam goes to investigate and discovers his father’s underground office and we see a familiar laser weapon pointed to a computer terminal. Soon, Sam is sucked into the Grid, forced to play its games, encounters his dad’s creation, CLU (also played by Bridges), who has run amuck and is the antagonist of the film. Soon, Sam is rescued from another program called Quorra (Olivia Wilde) and is soon reunited with his father. Their mission is to bring Sam back to the real world and find a way to stop CLU.

As mentioned the visuals are amazing. The disk duel that Sam goes through early on is pretty cool and the light cycle races are out of this world. The most amazing visual effect is turning a 61 year-old Jeff Bridges back into his 31 year-old self when the original film came out. Even Boxleitner gets into the younger action when we see his alter-ego Tron for one brief moment.

The one thing that takes me out of the film is the fact that when we get scenes of the real world, I know that it was filmed in Vancouver. There are some unmistakable locations that they used that I know was Vancouver. But once the get to the world of the Grid, then the movie really takes off.

Bridges was great as both the hero and the villain and I guess I forgot that Kevin Flynn was the laid back kind of dude that he was in the original.  Wilde was good a Quorra, a kind of wide-eyed innocent program but who can also take care of herself. I just wished her backstory was explained a bit faster and her relationship with other characters better explained. I won’t spoil it here but there was a slight twist in the movie that I figured out fairly quickly and I don’t know if the audience is supposed to or not until that reveal happened.

But overall, Tron Legacy is a visual feast and I can see that there is potential for a third chapter of Tron.