Tron: Legacy is an effects driven film, and it’s definitely one of the better special effects heavy films in recent memory. There are many movies like Transformers: Dark of the Moon which simply bombard the audience with a cacophony of sounds and clashes of light for three hours, than there are movies like Tron: Legacy. While nowhere near the technological genius of a movie like Avatar, Tron: Legacy keeps things sleek enough to keep up interested, all the while putting on a good show.
Set twenty years after the original Tron film, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is a 27 year old who once a year harasses the firm his father founded, which he holds majority shares in. The company is being run by those who don’t favor the ideology of Sam’s father, and while this creates some history between the characters, this plot line is relatively unexplored. The real movie begins when Sam enters the Grid. A computer world created by his father Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the Grid is now controlled by an alter ego of his dad named Clu (also Jeff Bridges). Clu has turned evil and won’t let Kevin return to Earth, while Clu strives to achieve the perfect world- hoping to one day breach the barrier to enter Earth.
While inside the computer, Sam meets up with an aged version of his father who has been trapped inside the machine for the past twenty years. Kevin has begun to train a girl named Quorra (Olivia Wilde), because she is from some sort of spontaneous life form that the computer generated, which could theoretically save the real planet or something. The plot outside of the basic storyline is a little moot, basically Sam wants to rescue his dad and to escape the Grid without letting Clu out.
Inside this computer world, society has epic disc battles and light-bike races. These scenes are done masterfully. The lights and sound effects could easily have been turned up to high, resulting in a mess of a film, but the team of Tron: Legacy was smarter than that. They keep things relatively simple, with most of the movie comprising primarily of black, white, blue and orange. The light-bike race is easy enough to follow and looks terrific. When used properly, CGI effects can actually enrich a film. Also, the sound effects are spectacular. The soundtrack is comprised of 80s dance tunes mixed with modern drum & bass music, which sets the tone for the sleek world.
Overall, Tron: Legacy is a relatively simplistic movie. It’s more like a candy bar than a healthy meal- if you’ll pardon the metaphor. Despite this, Tron: Legacy is still more entertaining than I imagined, and its damn fine candy. The acting is good enough to support the effects, and the visuals themselves are handled well, not going over the top.