To be honest, hecklerspray gave up on computer games after a particularly tricky level on Sonic 2 saw a great hole being kicked in mum’s TV cabinet. So it was with some trepidation that ‘spray prepared to re-enter the digital space for Tron: Legacy.
It's already obvious that this was a going to be visual feast, but even after the multitude of trailers and music videos, the immersive lengths Disney have gone to are impressively realized.
Even the company?s iconic fairytale castle logo get?s a pitch black Tron-style makeover during the opening credits, and then we're straight into the action.
The story itself is simple. Sort of. A digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges tells young son Sam all about ?The Grid? and his dream of a world where information is completely free, before promptly disappearing and leaving our hero with a convenient excuse to be mildly dysfunctional (remember, this is mouse-house stuff, so dysfunctional means ?a black jacket? rather than ?addiction to prescription medication?).
Sam spends his time taunting the newly corporate-ised Encom company with annual ?pranks? (such as putting their new OS live on the web before launch) that would get you a hefty spell in white collar prison in real life.
Yep, seems things aren't so great at his old dad?s company these days, with a bunch of smarmy cookie-cutter suits eyeing the bottom line, and Bruce Boxleitner?s prick of a son as head designer. Basically, they're Microsoft, if it was run by profit-hungry corporate wolves and put out terrible products.
Oh, wait?.
Anyway, you don't care about that and neither do we. We want to see glass motorbikes exploding, so it's a handy bit of exposition when the former Babylon 5 commander visits young Sam in his designer low-rent home with a message ? he's been paged (remember when US kids thought pagers were cool because gangstas used them?) from Kevin Flynn?s old office.
An office that's been closed for 20 years?spooooky.
Yeah, so anyway, Sam heads on down, finds a hidden door behind a Tron arcade machine – not to mention a jukebox that pumps out some truly bangin? Journey tracks ? and heads into his father?s secret office. And you guessed it; gets sucked into the world of Tron via his dad?s still functioning de-rezz laser.
Now, a fair few of you probably won't really remember the original Tron, so it's a shame this isn't fleshed out a bit for n00bs (it also makes you wonder why, given the events of the first film, Flynn hadn?t pointed the loaded interdimensional transporter?s barrel somewhere a bit safer. Or at least, you know..put up a sign or something.)
So Sam?s on the Grid. Cue ladies in white plastic shoes, huge flying space invaders and programs wandering about rocking a suspiciously ?Twilight? aesthetic, before coming face to face with ?Clu?, a digitized avatar of Jeff bridges whose gone rotten to the core processor, taking over the entire grid and reshaping it in his image, while desperately looking for a way to enter the real world and continue his nefarious business.
Exposition over, Sam is quickly plonked into ?The Games?, a superbly realized and surprisingly exciting version of Aerobee (remember those kids? No? sigh?). If, of course, Aerobees were designed to chop your block off.
Of course, because he's a lazy, feckless teenager, Sam is superbly equipped to deal in hand to hand gladiatorial combat with seasoned professionals, using unfamiliar weaponry in an anti-gravity arena.
It's flashy and exciting, the visuals again superb and immersive, although the sound design does occasionally suffer from a touch of the Phantom Menaces.
Facing off against a mysterious black-clad program armed with two disks, Sam is fortunately rescued by Quorra and whisked to a secret lair where Bridges senior spends his time contemplating the nature of the universe and ageing while all around him remain static.
And this is where things get interesting.
Bridges dream’s of free information and self-adaptive programs actually skim the surface of some extraordinarily deep thinking, particularly unusual in a big family film, and his temporally-displaced hippy talk provides some of the few light moments in what's otherwise a rather ponderous script.
Sam and Quorra (Olivia Wilde reaching almost Deschanelian heights of kooky adorability) rush about the place, fighting in nightclubs (complete with digital versions of Daft Punk on the decks and blowing shit up, while Bridges remains a calm God/Buddha/Santa Claus figure, occasionally using unseen and unknown powers to reshape the grid.
As plots go, it's not much to go on, and you definitely get the impression that there's a lot of excised material waiting for the special edition.
The fate and redemption of Tron himself is surprisingly glossed over in a couple of lines, leaving you desperately wondering what went so wrong for the one-time great hope, while Bridges and Sam as Jesus and Jehovah analogues don't ring as true as they might thanks to lack of exploration.
It's moments like this that unfortunately transform gravitas into unconvincing bombast.
Otherwise, this is a triumph.
Fast-paced, deep, exciting and genuinely thrilling. Particularly during the climactic air battle, which never quite crosses the line between ?Awesome!? and ?What the fuck is going on?? which is tribute to the steady hand newcomer Joseph Kosinski keeps on the digital tiller.
It would be ridiculously easy for this to fall into Batman & Robin territory, so it's a relief that camp is kept to an absolute minimum, only Michael Sheen?s ?Castor? flirting saucily with the edges of annoying.
And then there's the look.
The entire thing is absolutely stunning. Kosinski has made comments about doubting the CGI used to de-age Bridges, and during the early ?real-world? sections it does come across as jarring, and is wisely kept to a minimum.
Once we're plunged into the 3D Grid however, his slightly off-kilter ?digital botox? look works a treat, making CLU just real enough to emphasise with as a character while never quite letting you forget he's actually a creepy evil AI.
The effects are seamlessly blended with physical sets, and using practical costumes and weapons rather than CGI proves a great move, meaning you really feel every bump as characters fly from Lightcycles, fall toward fans and leap from ledges dressed as digital Dragonflies.
When programs die, smashing into a million glass fragments, it somehow remains poignant ?look out for the grieving widow sifting through the sand that's all that's left of her lover.
Overall this isn't without its flaws ? something that fits well with the underlying philosophy incidentally.
As mentioned, some events are glossed over, while there's an unnecessarily talky mid-section that could have been trimmed, leaving the pace uneven, a flaw which robs CLU of much of his menace. The film also suffers by association. There are a few too many nods to the (second) Star Wars trilogy and The Matrix here, meaning the religious undercurrent doesn't carry the weight it should. On the other hand, this is a grand spectacle that demands viewing on the big screen, pushing the boundaries of effects work while never allowing them to become unhinged from a linear narrative.
Fun for all the family, it’s thrilling without being scary, drips with eye-porn at every turn and certainly beats the crap out of most large franchises currently doing the rounds.
Here’s to version 3.0.
This review came from the lovely, silken fingertips of Matt Owen who you can slag off on twitter here or here. Hoo-stinkin’-ray for that.