Neon lights, big city. He lives to ride his light cycle. To ride, to ride. To ride, to ride. To ride, to ride. To ride, to ride. - Ares

 

...or a terrible reimagining of "Bright Lights" from 30 Seconds to Mars - who’s to notice the difference. Tron is a 80s film with a lot of visual flair, ahead of its time and accompanied by endless neon to assist the mainly gray grid the characters are living in. Kevin Flynn may be one of the greatest characters ever put to film with a phenomenally nostalgic performance from Jeff Bridges (who lucky for us returns for both sequels). 

 

Flynn is the ultimate creator, who went missing inside his own game never to come back out. His son, Sam, introduced in the sequel, comes into the game and ultimately finds his father in time for the gravest sacrifice. In the end, Sam finds love from within the game and hands off the keys to the company to one of the original designers of that world alongside his father. Now forget all that because a new boss is in charge and the new higher-ups at the rival company are there too. 

 

Newcomers to the Tron universe - Evan Peters and Gillian Anderson play rival Dillinger Systems CEO and board, Anderson is relatively wasted in her role here to be entirely honest. Peters however dials it up and has fun in the role as a maniacal fool with no regard to limits to get what he wants. Other newcomers taking on the Flynn created ENCOM is Academy Award nominee Greta Lee as the complete opposite of Peters take - providing an optimistic viewpoint on AI if in the right hands. Along with Lee, she is accompanied by three supporting characters that also work at ENCOM, with different levels of success - mainly trying to all be a form of comic relief.

 

Now the sole focus of the Tron films… the world inside the game, The Grid as it’s called and without those realms are the soulless soldiers within the machine, including Jared Leto’s Ares and Jodie Turner-Smith’s Athena. Leto is surprisingly great in the role, with his natural style of acting already coming across like AI, so it naturally fits the part. Turner-Smith unfortunately’s emotionless delivery doesn’t entirely deliver the villainous turn you’d expect - she’s fine in the role, but is never offering much as her character purposely never evolves beyond its original AI code. 

 

The story doesn’t quite matter in this universe. Two rival companies trying to come out on top for two entirely different reasons. One to bring a bit of peace to the world through innovation, the other to reign over with weaponry and vehicles straight out of the game. Good vs evil.  The only issue is for both parties - the game world can only become a part of the real world for exactly 29 minutes before crumbling to dust. And Ares, a piece of AI built from the ground up to learn to be the best soldier it can be, quickly absorbs emotions along the way through the same methods - ultimately having the desire to cross their creator and become a permanent member of the real world. First to manage to successfully crack the code, wins the war. 

 

The visuals are what matters (and seeing this in 3D IMAX the neon glow really pops). The designs evolve from what we’ve seen in the last two entries, while having numerous delightful callbacks to the previous films. Surprisingly the visuals that take place within the real world are far more immersive than that within the grid, although a brief scene inside the grid in the third act had me reflecting back on just how cool the art of the original was. 

 

Alongside the visuals is a killer soundtrack with the return of Nine Inch Nails tackling the score. Tron: Legacy has a fantastic soundtrack from Daft Punk and while they have slightly different vibes, Nine Inch Nails brings yet another feeling to the world of electronic music - pumping adrenaline through our veins. The score has always been a treat and similar here, it will be what makes you want to return to this universe just for the feeling of the visuals seamlessly blending with NIN. 

 

The story isn’t anything special - it’s campy, it’s retro, it’s Tron - but we come to this place for the visuals first and we come to this place for the good vs evil plot that is just infinite levels of nostalgia second. The NIN score is just an added bonus. Plus it’s not a Tron without Jeff Bridges and THANK GOD they didn’t deage him again.