Tron: Legacy

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$2.50 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50

WHY?

“TRON: Legacy” proves the admonition from noted TV critic David Bianculli to duck programs with a colon in the title. The same applies to feature film. Disney produced the original TRON in 1982 on a budget reported to be about $17 million. The sequel, 28 years later, is estimated to have cost $300 million. Expect more cuts at ABC News to pay for it. The original was hardly “Gone with the Wind” at the box office. This begs the question, “Why?” Sequels exist for one reason: To make money. The sequel is conceived following boffo box office for the original. Some really awful pix get sequels simply because they made a huge profit. There is a sequel in the works for “The Hangover,” one of 2009’s worst pictures. A stunt actor has already been injured on the set of the sequel.

“TRON: Legacy” boast some action and a lot of special effects, has no plot to speak of. Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner reprise their roles as Kevin Flynn and Alan Bradley (respectively). They are joined by Garrett Hedlund as Kevin’s son, Sam, a motorcycle daredevil who is now the largest shareholder in his dad’s company, ENCOM, which makes videogames.

In flashback a young Sam learns of Kevin’s discoveries in the virtual universe. Those who recall the original “TRON” will recall that Bridges as “Clu” and Boxleitner as Tron had an adventure in a virtual world that they created.

It seems that Bridges’ Kevin has been trapped in the virtual world for years after his alter-ego, Clu, went bad. Don’t ask how good virtual characters go bad of their own free will. The filmmakers don’t bother to explain it. Clu runs the virtual world and has purged a species of robot known as the ISO. The last ISO is a very attractive Quorra, played by Olivia Wilde, under Kevin’s protection. We guess that she is hot because she was created by a guy who liked hot chicks. Otherwise she might as well have looked like Rosie the maid in “The Jetsons.”

After an unpleasant encounter with the ENCOM board, Sam is contacted by Alan with a clue to the portal to his dad’s virtual world. It goes through his dad’s abandoned video arcade. Why, if Kevin created this virtual world, he can’t get out on his own, is another of pic’s dangling participles. Suffice it to say that he can’t without Sam’s help. The trio, Kevin, Sam, and Quorra, run Clu’s gauntlet of games to make their escape to Earth. One of them does not make it.

Pic’s ending is hardly a denouement. It is so equivocal that it begs for yet another sequel. Suffice it to say that Boxleitner’s Alan Bradley takes over as chairman of ENCOM. Other than that, your critic will spare you any spoilers.

Boxleitner emerges as pic’s most convincing thesp. This may be due to his having the least “action” to play of all pic’s principals. The rest is Bridges more or less playing the slightly mystical role he played in “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” Hedlund gearing up for action, and Wilde looking really good in a tight black costume, augmented with a lot of special effects, an awful lot of special effects, which is where we suspect that most of the estimated $300 million budget went.

Pic counts no fewer than six writers, two of whom, Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird, worked on the original, 1982 version. It could be a case of too many cooks. Direction by Joseph Kosinski is adequate, but that’s all. “TRON: Legacy” was made in the edit room and on the hard drive, brilliantly so, but technical wizardry cannot make up for a weak story.

“TRON: Legacy” runs 127 minutes and is rated PG in a nod to kids who like razzle-dazzle.

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Tron: Legacy on Netflix