Living Up to its ‘Legacy’: New ‘TRON’ Delivers

While the story in “TRON: Legacy” is pretty appetizing, the real feast here is for the eyes and includes an unforgettable dessert for the ears. In other words, it’s an audio-visual masterpiece.

It’s worth noting how strange this movie’s development cycle was; it’s a sequel to a 28-year-old movie that was a box office failure upon release. But persistent fans can make crazy things happen, and so here we are with a faithful (and better) sequel to the 1982 prequel, “TRON.”

This time, we’re following the rebellious Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, the son of equally rebellious Kevin Flynn, reprised by Jeff Bridges, the main character from the first film. Sam ends up inside the Grid, a virtual world that is a representation of what happens inside of a computer. Without revealing too much, not all is well in the land of “TRON.”

The plot maybe doesn’t go as far into the details of the virtual world as I might’ve liked, but unlike other reviews of “Legacy” I’ve read, I was fine with that. There needs to be a certain level of mystery instilled for the world to still be truly interesting.

Some would say there wasn’t very much depth to the story, but perhaps they weren’t watching the movie carefully enough. The film has some interesting existential and religious symbols throughout and enough subtext that you won’t be disappointed.

The visualization of the Grid is maybe the biggest attraction for the film. If you’ve ever seen a parody of the original “Tron,” it stands out purely based on the amazingly distinctive style featured. “Legacy” successfully updates this style in a way that makes it cooler while still staying true to the original.

Almost the entire world is colored very dark, but outlined by futuristic neon lines. This effect makes the Grid always resemble a city at night, where the people literally look like a part of the world from which they came.

From a purely visual point-of-view, almost everything in this movie is perfect. Even when Jeff Bridges is animated to look younger, the results are surprisingly good although it doesn’t look quite perfect.
This imperfection is pretty much the only visual blemish in the film. As far as the 3D goes, while I’d recommend it, I also didn’t really notice it after a while.

Daft Punk’s soundtrack really feels proper and is a perfect compliment to the bright, futuristic visuals. It certainly stands alone like you’d expect a Daft Punk album would, but with the added visual components, it effectively becomes a part of the world.

“TRON: Legacy” really does have it all, and when you finish watching the movie, hopefully you will be satisfied, as if you just had a great meal.