TRON: Legacy

Joseph Kosinski’s 2010 film ties format to story: the real world was shot flat in two dimensions and the Grid in three. The format changes when Sam falls in. Watch it flat at home and a deliberate structural device quietly disappears, so how you watch this one matters. The second issue is a face. The antagonist is a digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges on screen for much of the running time, and whether that face reads as a person or a mask decides whether the villain works. Rick Baker was hired to sculpt a mould of a younger Bridges; the team scrapped it for not looking youthful enough and, with no time to make another, rebuilt the face digitally. On set Bridges performed first, then actor double John Reardon repeated the moves, and Reardon’s head was replaced afterwards. The costumes were lit with electroluminescent Light Tape and sewn so that no stitching shows, because the designers reasoned that in a virtual world clothing would materialise without buttons or zips. The arena crowd was recorded from the room at a panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010. A good fit if you want long stretches carried by music and design instead of dialogue. Less so if you expect the rules of the Grid to be explained to you.