TRON

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures

The creator of video games and a major corporation finds himself trapped in one of his own creations in the science fiction adventure TRON: LEGACY.

Jeff Daniels is Kevin Flynn, the owner of a successful technology company who still enjoys working on the ground level of the industry, continuing to experiment with the possibility of virtual explorations for mankind. Kevin is a father to his 12-year old son Sam, and a widower. One night after putting his son to bed, Kevin heads to his arcade for more research and experimentation. He never returns.

Twenty-years later Sam is now the majority owner of his father’s corporation, when his surrogate father and a board member of the corporation receives a page from the arcade that Sam’s father once owned. Sam travels to the arcade, and discovers the porthole to the virtual reality his father created.

TRON: LEGACY is a visual and auditory feast, the quintessential moving picture of 2010. TRON: LEGACY is such an entertaining film in those regards that you almost forget that it doesn’t amount to much.

This science-fiction flick is much more fiction than science, leaping into a virtual world and never looking back. Where a more cerebral film would have explored technology’s impact on society, or at the very least explored something more than surface material, TRON: LEGACY is what it is, a video and audio celebration of technology.

The world of Tron is a unique experience, creating a land that is imaginative and futuristic, but also simplistic enough to follow its concepts and limitations. Means of transportation appear from thin air, the characters often move in sync to the film’s soundtrack and the palette of colors is limited, but effective.

First-time film director Joseph Kosinski’s experience with art direction in video games and commercials pays off in TRON: LEGACY, even if a collection of screenwriters don’t provide much assistance in regards to plot or characterization.

Letting the soundtrack play and the images unwind, TRON: LEGACY is easily enjoyed as a mind-numbing, but sensory-invigorating trip inside a video game.

Grade: B-