Tron Legacy

Take what is real as reference, then manipulate, extend and fantasise until it becomes something wholly new and yet strangely familiar. This was James Cameron's philosophy while creating Pandora, and is the inspiration for Tron: Legacy, the belated sequel to digital fantasy Tron. While Avatar took the natural world as it's inspiration, Tron: Legacy instead builds a corporate landscape, now far more advanced than the 1983 version, and imbues it with a digital, luminescent quality that is both beautiful and devastating. Light-cycles race around clear multi-level race tracks, skyscrapers highlighted in neon reach impossibly high, and a simple game of dodgeball becomes something far more dangerous.

It is in this alternate dimension that Kevin Flynn (Bridges), the protagonist of the original outing and creator of the digital world of Tron, has been missing for 20 years. His son Sam - a strong enough performance from Heglund - finds his way into the system, only to be greeted by Clu, the digital counterpart of his father, who has his own agenda.

The first half hour sizzles with energy, and creativity, culminating in the film's centrepiece, a breathtaking spectacle of light and sound, as light-cycles weave in and out of each other at impossible speeds.

Unfortunately, that is the first half hour. After such a promising start, even the reintroduction of Bridges fails to bring extra inspiration to proceedings. Too much dialogue, confusing plot contrivances and the lack of any further creative flair, mire the production in a paint-by-numbers, save-the-world, get-the-girl retread of recent sci-fi efforts (perhaps the best comparison being with the Matrix sequels, including the irrelevant participation of a "Merovingian"-type character who serves no purpose other than to be annoying).

While the original is certainly dated, at least it centred on a unique and imaginative central premise. There is very little of that flair apparent here, with key characters reduced to footnotes (including an inexplicably brief and inconsequential appearance of the title character Tron) and attempts to expand the myth coming out contrived. There is enough eye candy to pull it out of average but could have been so much more.

6/10