Hollywood Product: Tron Legacy

GENRE: Sci-fi adventure

THE PITCH: Hacker/corporate heir Sam Flynn (bland hunk Garrett Hedlund) finds himself zapped into cyberspace realm called “The Grid,” populated by sentient programs that look like people. He reunites with his long-lost father Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role from the original) to stop Dad’s online doppelganger Clu (also played by Bridges) from extending his tyrannical reign.

MONEY SHOTS: After establishing scenes in the human world, Tron Legacy presents a nonstop spectacle from Sam’s arrival on the Grid to his meeting with Kevin. He goggles at one of those gigantic, big-footed “Recognizer” ships. He discovers that gravity can be a weapon in Discwars, a kind of Frisbee gladiator battle. He jumps his through the air in a terrific light-cycle chase. A neat-o dogfight comes near the end and looks cool, while being kind of hard to follow.

BEST LINE: “Biodigital jazz, man.” Flynn’s dad sounds like an aging Jeff Lebowski, and you’re never sure what he’s talking about.

BEST READING OF BAD LINE: “Patience, Sam Flynn. All your questions will be answered soon,” declares Kevin’s hot helper Quorra. Olivia Wilde’s flirty, half-ironic performance steals the film.

BODY COUNT: About 20 deaths, if “de-resolution” counts as death: Ill-fated programs shatter into tiny fragments. One “henchman program” gets smashed through the face.

FLESH FACTOR: Not long after Sam’s arrival, four sexy programs in skin-tight jumpsuits undress him before the games. They must be the kind of programs you can’t access if Parental Controls are on.

MEMORABLE MUSIC: Daft Punk provides some digital dance tunes (and appears, behind helmets, as DJs at End of Line nightclub). A lot of the score actually sounds like the Inception music (MMRRAAWW!), but in a good way. A scene in a deserted video arcade plays such rad 1980s tunes as Journey’s “Separate Ways.”

TRON REFERENCES: The sequel offers a treasure trove for Tron geeks, including little paperweights that look like “the Bit,” a cameo from a huge company’s vault-like door from the original, and a variation on the original line, “This isn’t happening, it only thinks it’s happening.” Tron director Steven Lisberger has a walk-on role as a bartender. No big pink swirling Master Control Program face, though.

OTHER SCI-FI REFERENCES: A meal at Kevin’s pallid apartment suggests the penultimate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The dogfight deliberately evokes the first Star Wars. The line “The only way to win is not to play” shouts out to another early-1980s computer flick War Games.

REAL-WORLD METAPHORS: Surprisingly few. The film’s early scenes in real life set up a tension between the profit motive of Microsoft-like company Encom and the hacker ethos that information should be free. The rest of the film ignores those ideas in favor of muddled notions of totalitarian perfectionism.

HOW’S THE 3-D? Not as good as you’d expect. I saw on an IMAX screen and the Grid’s dark background prevented the 3-D from popping. A scene with Clu addressing a huge army looks cool, but the best 3-D was in the trailer for next year’s animal documentary Born to be Wild.

BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL: Kind of. Tron’s special effects and score have aged poorly, and story was never that impressive in the first place. Tron Legacy has great visuals and music, but the plot proves disappointingly derivative of the first film.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Once you get past idea that the Grid looks like a sleek modern airport and Clu looks like part of the The Polar Express CGI ensemble, Tron Legacy presents a visual feast. But director Joseph Kosinski punts his chance to comment on contemporary computer habits in favor of a mushy subplot about angelic AIs called “isometric algorithms,” or ISOs. Can someone reboot the reboot?