Tron Legacy continues 28 years later in the virtual world dubbed The Grid with a digitally young-ified Jeff Bridges as Clu (Codified Likeness Utility), a programme gone rogue after misinterpreting its original command set. Naturally, it commandeers the virtual-scape and wants to expand his enterprise to the real world. Just how he’s going to do that is a question for the next sequel.

In the age of feature-perfect CGI, it must have been a tough job making Bridges look a tad plastic, especially in the opening scenes set in 1989, where he — as Kevin Flynn, genius programmer from the first film — pitches just enough of the original to unhinder DVD sales of special editions.

Bridges then disappears until he is found by his son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) in a closed personal haven in The Grid. He now has a thick pasty beard, looks late 60-ish and dresses in free-flowing pajamas. Stranded, he decided to become Buddha. “You’re messing with my Zen thing, man,” he tells Sam. Sam shares his father’s flair for computers and rough driving. On introduction, he outruns a police bike. Sam then hacks into Encom — the Microsoft-like enterprise (almost) owned by the Flynns, but run by corporate governance interested in year-end fiscal ratings — and distributes their latest Operating software to the internet. Considering he owns a majority stake in the biz, that’s painful news to his bank account.

After Sam ticks off his annual bid of financially ruining Encom, he is led to Flynn’s old video arcade. This gives music directors Daft Punk’s ‘80s electronic groove to tie in a bit of old-school nostalgia. When Sam is sucked into The Grid moments later, the music shifts focus to one out of a Christopher Nolan film.

From here on, everything is glossed CGI with dark architectures tinted in neon glows. Even the programmes — the human personification of the code living in The Grid — have become sexier. A set of four, who come out of a wall enclosure to dress up Sam, wear in-vogue high heels. They cut off his clothes, outfit him with a “data disk” and creepily walk backwards to the wall casings they came out of. Sam asks one called Gem (Beau Garrett): “What am I supposed to do?” She answers: “Survive.”

Released by Disney, Tron Legacy is rated PG-13. Directed by the skilled Joseph Kosinski, Legacy is a full-featured blockbuster featuring fantabulous action sequences, a bare-essential story and a very brief romantic interlude between Hedlund and the lustrous Olivia Wilde. Bridges shares the screen times too. But where is Tron, the security programme whose human form is played by the returning Bruce Boxleitner? That’s a question worthy of a watch.