Main cast: Jeff Bridges (Kevin Flynn, Clu), Bruce Boxleitner (Alan Bradley, Tron), David Warner (Ed Dillinger, Sark, Master Control Program), Cindy Morgan (Lora, Yori), Dan Shor (Ram), Peter Jurasik (Crom), Tony Stephano (Peter), and Barnard Hughes (Dr Walter Gibbs, Dumont)
Director: Steven Lisberger

Remember 1982? Tron is a movie that limped into theaters with all the enthusiasm of a dial-up modem connecting to AOL, only to later spawn a cult following so rabid they make Comic-Con attendees look casual.

These devotees have spent four decades wailing into the digital void about how Hollywood “never made a proper sequel”, which, let’s be honest, is like complaining that nobody’s made a proper sequel to your fever dream about fighting geometric shapes in a disco.

Look, I get the polarization. Tron is basically what happens when someone drops acid, plays Pong for 96 hours straight, and then gets a $17 million budget to make a movie about it. The “groundbreaking” special effects look like an Apple II had a stroke. The “virtual reality” depicted here is about as accurate as asking your grandfather to explain TikTok.

Here’s the thing, though. This dated, wildly inaccurate techno-fever-dream is somehow more fun than the actual internet we have today. I mean, come on — the villainous Master Control Program (MCP, and yes, before you ask, it has nothing to do with the MCU) is at least honest about being a tyrannical digital overlord.

So unlike today’s AI assistants that chirp “How can I help you today? 😊” while simultaneously selling your browsing history to seventeen data brokers and writing your obituary just in case. Give me the MCP’s straightforward authoritarianism over ChatGPT’s suspiciously helpful Stockholm Syndrome energy any day.

Our hero is Kevin Flynn, a whiz kid programmer who got royally screwed by Ed Dillinger. Dillinger is now a senior executive VP at tech giant ENCOM, because of course he is. He didn’t just steal Flynn’s job; he stole his video games and passed them off as his own. Ah, those simpler times when tech companies just wanted to make Pac-Man clones instead of mining our emotional vulnerabilities and convincing us that we need a $3,500 VR headset to attend meetings.

Flynn’s been trying to hack ENCOM to prove his innocence, but the MCP keeps blocking him at every turn. Fortunately, this leads Dr Lora Baines and her boyfriend Alan Bradley — both ENCOM programmers with the combined personality of a beige desktop computer — to discover Flynn’s plight. The three form an alliance to take down Dillinger and clear Flynn’s name, because apparently workplace disputes in the ’80s required forming entire resistance movements.

Meanwhile, the MCP has been secretly upgrading itself like a particularly ambitious Windows update, expanding its programming, function, and power until it basically becomes Skynet’s nerdy older brother.

In a move that makes total sense if you don’t think about it, Flynn gets zapped into the gaming grid — yes, physically digitized like a fax — and has to fight in gladiatorial video game battles against the MCP’s armies, all of whom look like their human creators because… budget? Symbolism? Who cares, LASER FRISBEES!

Inside the grid, Flynn teams up with Tron (who looks like Alan because computer reasons) and Yori (who looks like Lora because we needed at least one woman in this sausage fest). And because the universe loves us, Ed Dillinger plays all the bad guys, giving us not one, not two, but THREE David Warners chewing scenery like it’s his last meal. The man delivers villain voice with the gravitas of a Shakespearean actor who got lost on the way to the theater and ended up in a laser tag arena. He is the MVP, the GOAT, the only reason half this movie works, and tragically, he’s not on screen nearly enough.

Meanwhile Jeff Bridges plays Flynn with his signature likeable slacker charm, but the character has the depth of a Windows 95 screensaver. Bruce Boxleitner tackles Tron with such earnest, square-jawed determination that you almost forget his character is essentially “good program who punches bad programs”. It’s endearing! It’s also approximately as complex as a light switch.

And David Warner? God bless him, that man is WORKING. His snarl could curdle milk at fifty paces. Sadly, the movie seems allergic to giving us enough of him, probably because too much David Warner would cause the film to collapse into a singularity of pure villainy.

Tron has a plot is more generic than store-brand cereal — good guy fights evil computer boss. Still, the pacing is solid and it’s entertaining enough, even if it’s nowhere near memorable and the main characters have the emotional complexity of Clippy from Microsoft Word.

Those visuals, however. Oh, those beautiful, terrible, gloriously primitive visuals. What might seem revolutionary back in 1982 now looks like someone bedazzled a geometry textbook, but there’s a campy charm to it that’s genuinely endearing.

Is Tron overrated by its fans? Absolutely. It’s a fairly standard action movie dressed up in a light-up Halloween costume. However, it’s worth watching at least once to see what would happen if Atari made a movie while having a nervous breakdown.