《电子世界争霸战2：遗产》

    Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde star in a follow-up to a 1982 cult classic.

    “Tron: Legacy” takes us into a world inside computers where the games are lethal* and the mind can get lost, albeit* with new players, a new story line, a new director and nearly three decades* of improved technology. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly enough new life.

    Bridges is playing three variations* of the Kevin Flynn video game-making genius who started the whole thing. There is his present self — a sort of older, wiser, Zen Flynn; his 20-years-younger self; and his Clu-less self. (For any non-Tronites, Clu is the “program” created in Flynn’s image that lives in the computer grid*.)

    There’s a blank* space between the end of “Tron” and the beginning of “Legacy,” during which Flynn built a video-game empire* and had a son, Sam, who is 7 by the time we first see dad tucking him into bed*.

    Meanwhile, his off-hours are spent teleporting back to the grid. Risky business as it happens, because Flynn, the real one, we learn, has been trapped in the grid for the past 20 years, keeping himself occupied by expanding it into a trillion-watt world radiant against a perpetual dark night.

    As the story opens, Flynn’s son, Sam (an appealing Garrett Hedlund) is a 27-year-old rebel with abandonment* issues, a souped-up* motorcycle and a very cool bachelor pad*, paid for by the mega-conglomerate of a family business he’s washed his hands of. Flynn’s old partner Alan (a.k.a. Tron in grid-world and played by Bruce Boxleitner) has been watching over the kid since Dad disappeared.

    One night, Sam is paged back to the old Flynn video arcade*. The ancient equipment that first teleported Flynn is still there and in a flash the son is following in his father’s footsteps after all — into the grid where the beautiful warrior* princess Quorra (Olivia Wilde) will serve as his guide. Sam’s searching for his dad and dealing with those abandonment issues are what screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz spend most of their time plotting, leaving the sci-fi thrill factor in need of attention.

    Following the blueprint of the original, action comes with the battles. Like all warriors on the side of good in the grid, Sam has to be tested. It turns out he’s a chip off the old watt, and there’s a lot of racing around going on.

    The film arrives in an age populated by a generation or more who have spent much time playing increasingly complex video games. They are masters of this universe, one in which “Tron: Legacy” turns out to be just an average* player.

    (SD-Agencies)