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Screened in IMAX 3-D.

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Normally when I am out of step with general opinion on a movie, I can at least see what quibbles I am ignoring for my enjoyment; not so much with Tron Legacy. This is a good movie, and a great Tron movie, and if the latter feels like I am condescending to the material, I don't mean to be. The greatest success of Tron Legacy is that it elevates Tron to the level of myth. I think if you grew up dreaming about the Tronverse and wanted to make a movie that both expanded the original mythology and paid off the sheer geek thrill of the thing, Tron Legacy is the movie you would make. I even found it strangely touching. As I let the big IMAX sound wash over me, the 3-D light-and-fury show on the floor-to-ceiling screen, I was amazed by how familiar it all seemed, like a childhood dream remembered by way of a blue-and-white energy bath. Tron Legacy does something very tricky: it feels like the sequel to the movie we all think the original Tron was, when remembered fondly in our mind's eye.

I was never much of a Tron guy. I saw the film as a kid - on Beta, lying on my cousin's floor, perhaps not ideal viewing circumstnaces. Like most others, I found it left a lifelong impression by dint of its unchallenged uniqueness, but I think even at age 8, I was aware that the film didn't work. It showed me an utterly singular world, but told me no stories there that captured my attention. I still can't tell you what happened to Kevin Flynn in 1982, but I can expound for hours on what I think the story might have been.

Storytelling is a huge part of Tron Legacy. The constant interchange of stories from character to character operates in counterpoint to the inherently sterile, atonal cyberverse in which the adventure is set. There is a measure of exposition, but a cunning lack of explanation. When Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is transported into the Tronverse and tossed almost immediately into a life-or-death gladiatorial battle, the movie doesn't slow down to tell us why any of this is happening. It goes the other way: it revs up, accelerates; plunges straight into the subconscious faster-than-thought reactions of dreams or video games. I found myself thinking, yes, this is what it would be like to be inside a real game. The world becomes enormous, loud, threatening, and sleek, and all the crowds are cheering, and I know exactly what to do.

Legacy is also built around a surprisingly emotional story, driven by a (pair of) Jeff Bridges performance(s) that are unexpectedly substantial. One of these is the much-discussed CLU, who is indeed played by 61-year-old Bridges in a digitally-driven mask of his 35-year-old face. This effect, sadly, is a failure; it turns out that the wobbly shots of CLU from the Tron trailers were, in fact, among the most successful shots delivered in the film. There are many others which are outright visual messes. Too bad, too, because it's a) such a nice idea, and b) so obviously something that will be mastered by the effects field in the next five years. It's not there yet.

This robs CLU of some of his menace, but takes nothing away from the other half of the Bridges performance, which is Crazy Old Man Bridges, or Gandalf the Dude, or Hippie-Wan Kenobi, or whatever else you want to call him. I found the aged Kevin Flynn delightful throughout, a real payoff on fan imaginings of the wider Tron storyline in the 28 years between point A and point B. Trapped in the Tronverse for what might well be an eternity (moments in the real world are months in the computer world), Flynn has evolved into a grizzled Buddha in a Kubrick room, and seems to even have difficulty remembering he ever had a son, when Sam first comes knocking on his door.

But the fact that Legacy liberates Bridges from his cell and sends him on the back half of the adventure with his son is where the film really won my heart, because ultimately, this is the story we wanted to see, regardless of however handily Hedlund has been handling the leading-man duties up to this point. Hedlund is solid, and as he breaks into Encom in the first sequence in the film, I certainly thought, yes, he reminds me of his father. But relegating Bridges to cameo status in favour of a newcomer would have been a cheat. Instead, we have a genuine emotional throughline for the elder Flynn character, with philosophical underpinings as old as Frankenstein and as contemporary as WikiLeaks, and a tale about fatherhood, and all the love and mistakes that being a parent can entail. We also have ample opportunity for Bridges to riff on his inherent Bridges-ness, spouting one-liners like "You're really messing up my Zen thing, man," or better yet, "Chaos - good news."

Throughout, the film around these characters has been morphing and changing like a dream, moving in and out of stereoscopy, aspect ratios fluctuating and resolving, Daft Punk's liquid score cycling up and down like a great sailing machine to propel the film on levels both liminal and sub. A sensual marvel, Tron Legacy will be a treat to view in varying states of consciousness, to further enhance this half-remembered idea of the dark lands inside the machine.