Wrath of Tron

An ’80s artifact is this month’s freshest film. 

Tron just may be the most influential movie …that not a ton of people have actually seen. “A lot of people think they’ve seen it,” chuckles Joseph Kosinski, the first-time director of the three-decades-in-the-making sequel, Tron: Legacy. “But even if they haven’t, they instantly recognize recognize what ‘Tron-like’ means.” So what does it mean? A black-lit digital world where computer programs (bearing the likenesses of their creators) compete in bizarre games at the behest of a sinister Master Control Program Kosinski’s biggest challenge? Shaving 30 years off his leading man in the original, Jeff Bridges starred as computer hacker Kevin Flynn as well as Flynn’s digital doppelganger, Clu. In Legacy, Flynn has gone gray, but Clu hasn’t aged a pixel since 1982. “I think this is the first time an actor plays against a younger version of himself,” Kosinski says. Throw in Olivia Wilde in a glowing cat suit (!) and Tron: Legacy may become the hit the original never was. “Tron was ahead of its time, so our goal is to again make something unlike anything else out there.”