DVD Review: Tron

Rated PG for adult themes, tense moments

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor, David Warner

Video arcade owner Kevin Flynn is a former ENCOM software engineer who has created several video games that became popular after another ENCOM employee, Ed Dillinger, stole them from him. Knowing the files have his name on it, Flynn continues to hack into the ENCOM system and find them to prove he is the rightful creator of the games. After Flynn's most recent hack attempt, Dillinger and his Master Control Program (which has a mind of its own) decide to shut down access to the level group Flynn had access to, thus locking out fellow software engineer Alan Bradley who was working on a program called Tron which would serve as a watchdog program and keep even the Master Control Program in check.

Frustrated, Alan and Flynn come together, with the help of ENCOM employee Laura. They sneak Flynn into the building so he can distract the MCP and hack in long enough to grant them all level 6 access so Alan can get his Tron program up and running, which would help find the files proof that Flynn created the games and not Dillinger.

MCP does not like though and decides to physically trap Flynn into the the world of Bytes and Bits. Having to band together with other "user controlled" programs, including Tron, Flynn must fight for his survival and work with Tron to defeat the MCP from the inside in order to escape back to his world.

Released in 1982, I'm sure this sci-fi action adventure film was groundbreaking and in a lot of ways it reminded me of Bladerunner or The Running Man. Viewing it almost 20 years later though, it's extremely dated and the graphics and special effects are just laughable. We can only hope that the upcoming Tron: Legacy film has much better, updated graphics than the original.

I have to admit, while this is a Disney film and was marketed towards families, if I had watched this in the 80s as a little kid, I would have been extremely bored and confused as to what was going on. This is definitely not a movie meant for kids, as they most likely won't understand much of what's going on.

If you like classic sci-fi films from the 80s, this is one you might be interested in.