Tron: Legacy

‘Tron’ sequel doesn’t live up to the legacy of the 1982 original

December 17, 2010|Wesley Morris, Globe Staff

So you’re a guy who rides a motorbike around town. You’re about 25, and your father’s been missing since you were 12. His computer company has just released a pricey new operating system meant to be distributed for free. And his old business partner has just been paged from somewhere inside dad’s long-defunct video arcade. You find a secret lair behind a console of the game he invented.

Suddenly you’re zapped from boring old Earth into dad’s computer program. The slashes of neon circuitry are galactic disco, the ground is nothing but moving shifting panels of macrochip and light. You stand in the middle of an enormous chamber as hot femme bots drift out of Svedka vodka ads — or seem to, anyway — and make sex faces as they strip then dress you in a sleek, laser-lit unitard. You know exactly where you are, and it’s awesome. Yet, all that two screenwriters have given you to say is: “This can’t be good.’’

And it isn’t.

“Tron: Legacy’’ gives us a dud stud named Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn, the hero of this petrified sequel to 1982’s “Tron.’’ None of what he sees impresses. The feeling is mutual. At an alleged cost of $200 million, that’s some yawn. If he can’t be thrilled, why should we?

Wonderland intrigued Alice. Dorothy was in awe of Oz. Jake Sully so learned to love Pandora that he came to rule it. Sam is content to become an action figure, slinging discs of light at anonymous opponents for the thrill of computer-generated crowds. He’s looking for his father, Kevin Flynn, and discovers that not only has Flynn’s hacker-program avatar turned evil and taken over this digital world (it’s called the Grid) but that Jeff Bridges plays both men. The latter is heavy and grizzled, the former is fit and digitally reupholstered like Tom Hanks’s train conductor in “The Polar Express.’’ It’s “Crazy Heart’’ Bridges versus “Starman.’’

You’d think that as Sam made his way around the Grid, his eyes would at least go wide — or his brow would furrow — at the fact that his father’s game and Disney’s visionary movie have changed. This sequel is as obsessed with the decor of “2001’’ as “Inception’’ was, but really Sam is now in “Star Wars.’’ Everyone on the Grid wears Stormtrooper white or Darth Vader black. And that headgear? Luke, I am your father’s helmet. Once Bridges starts gliding around in baggy spa whites and oracular robes with halo-glow insets, spewing koans of sub-“Lebowski’’ dudeness (“The only way to win is not to play!’’), you wonder how Obi-Wan Kenobi came to be reborn as Laurence Fishburne in “The Matrix.’’