Tron: Legacy Several Storeys of Sci-fi at the Bradford IMAX

Ever since Iron Man 2 landed in late Spring, the sci-fi nerd’s film calendar has been building towards one thing – Tron: Legacy.

The National Media Museum felt this sci-fi sequel to be so important that it put on a midnight showing on its neck-straining imax screen. For good measure, there were even a handful of activities put on to get you in the mood – CGI trickery to put you into the Tron world and games of the films both new and old. It was all driving, however, toward the main event. Indeed, the queue (made up entirely of people who already had tickets, I might add) started forming a good three quarters of an hour ahead of the screening. ‘Look, people from Bradford do come out for things after midnight!’ one queuer noted.

So, one film for geeks, one massively oversized screen.

The problem with Tron: Legacy as a science fiction film is that it’s not a science fiction film. It’s perhaps best described as ‘science fantasy’. For the nerdier amongst others (and I know you’re out there) it’s a little hard to enjoy under the sci-fi label. Accepted as fantasy, it’s easier to get on with. Not perfect, but a worthy Christmas blockbuster.

Set, appropriately, close to 30 years after 1982’s Tron, Legacy follows Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of Kevin (star of the original, Jeff Bridges) as he’s physically dragged into The Grid, a virtual world created by his father more than two decades previously. This is also the place that has been his estranged father’s prison since he disappeared from Sam’s life. All is not staggeringly well on The Grid…

The great strength and weakness of having a film set in a completely fabricated world is that said world’s creators get to decide on all of its rules. Those creators – director Joseph Kosinski, writers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, and, of course, Steven M. Lisberger, the writer and director of the first Tron film and a producer on this one – pay lip service to The Grid being a visual representation of the behaviour of software (its inhabitants, for example, are called ‘programs’) but the reality (unreality?) of the situation is that it is a fantasy world with rules that have more to do with Harry Potter than Windows 7.

The problem with this is that, as outburst after outburst of techno-babble assails your ears, there’s a temptation to try to make sense of it. It’s based on software, so it must all fit together, right? Wrong. Well, maybe the whole film is actually a commentary on the user-unfriendliness of Windows Vista, but I doubt it. Rather, the film offers a thin narrative about the inherent flaws in any utopia and the relationship any creator has with their creation. But, as I said, it’s fairly thin stuff.

What you really need to do is stop thinking about it and accept Tron: Legacy for what it is – a blockbuster fantasy film aimed at family audiences. On those terms, it’s very successful. This film is, as the trailers promise, tremendous fun. The endless neon visuals are spectacular, as is the action choreography. The plot’s main purpose is to steer us from one spectacle to another, and the wobbly sections of exposition and fluffy story logic the job adequately. Try to take this stuff seriously, or even think too hard about how it all hangs together, at your own peril!

The spectacle does, however, justify the flimsy plot. Indeed, there’s little doubt that spectacle was the name of the game for Disney from the outset. The 3D was clearly there from the start and it feels like something that really adds to the film’s wow factor rather than a gimmick. Similarly, Legacy scaled up tremendously on the National Media Museum’s multi-story screen.

On the film’s more human front – Jeff Bridges is at times commanding and engaging, at others his performance is a little… well, goofy. He doesn’t always seem to know whether he’s playing Obi Wan Kenobi or The Dude from The Big Lebowski. He sometimes flip flops from regal and commanding to being a little bit… bodacious. Hiccups aside, though, he’s always watchable – even if his CGI’d in performance as his (sort-of) younger self is decidedly creepy.

Garrett Hedlund is similarly watchable, though his brooding, rebellious turn early in the film doesn’t quite gel with his determined attempts to ingratiate himself with his father later on. Olivia Wilde doesn’t present much depth in her role as cute ninja chick Cora, but then she isn’t given much to work with either. Still, she’s nothing if not likeable.

The problem Tron faces is not dissimilar from the problem the new Star Wars trilogy was up against a little over a decade ago – it has an adult audience that wants the same experience it had decades ago when girls were still icky and Santa had only just stopped being real. It’s not happening. If your adult brain gives too much processing power over to Tron: Legacy it will all fall down. If, however, you can appreciate it for what it is – a family blockbuster that kids will love – then Tron: Legacy still has plenty to give.

Mark Johnson is a Leeds-based video games journalist and occasional freelance writer on the subject of comics. He can be found on his blog, SPOnG.com and Twitter.