Tron Legacy

Well finally caught up with Tron Legacy after post Christmas celebrations. Its official i survived Christmas for another year. So biting the bullet visited my local picture house, donned a pair of 3D spectacles and took the ride.
     Tron is one of those little guilty pleasures from the eighties, I used to have the Wendy Carlos soundtrack, I had the movie poster on my study wall and an old well worn videotape of the movie. Its up there with The Black Hole as a valiant effort that just fell short of the mark.
      So did i enjoy this new chapter , well yes and no. If i was George Lucas I would take issue with one or two the character arcs in this new tale. Maybe even take issue with one or two scenes which reminded this viewer of Star Wars, Jeff Bridges Flynn is now the Obi Wan of this movie with a liberal dose of the Dude. Visually this movie is a massive step up from the first installment but then this is to be expected when considering the time elapsed between the two films. But some scenes seem virtual repeats of the first film. For example the  Solar sailor scenes. In all if I was to use a metaphor then this is a satisfactory burger , the meat patty tastes sublime but the support ingredients don't quite gel, the lettuce is a little limp and the cheese a bit overpowering and with an excess of ketchup.  So it fills a gap, keeps the hunger pangs at bay but never hits any real lofty heights of originality.
      So  in closing I did enjoy Tron but my expectations were not set that high prior to viewing went in wanting to be entertained and came away satisfied but not enthusiastic. This is the remodeled spaced out re-imagining of a flawed classic, View it in that context and you will at least come away reasonably happy whatever problems this film has it was at the scripting stage. The film lacks a clear plot, over enthusiastic use of exposition that at three specific points in this film bring events to a standstill.
     What action there is is handled well and background design and effects are suitably up there with the best.
There are a lot of loose ends left to be tidied up in a sequel but based on this viewing i do not expect a sequal to be high on Disney's cards. It might perform well initially on release but based on current figures on box office performance  I think it will die down about the third week. It will clear 100,000,000 but how far it will go over at the figure I hazard to guess. Depsite good use of 3D this is no Avatar.