Tron: Legacy (PG) ****

Tron: Legacy (PG) Dir: Joseph Kosinski, Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garret Hedlund, Olivia Wilde.

This has to be the best way to round off a great year of film. Since 3D came along, We've had the good (Avatar) and the bad (Clash of the Titans), and Tron: Legacy definitely fits into the good category.

The new imagining of Steven Lisberger's 1982 film is brilliantly captured using stunning special effects which rival those used in throughout Avatar, and a brilliant use of 3D technology which makes you feel like you're actually there on the Grid with the characters.

We start the film in 1989, where Kevin Flynn (Bridges) is telling his son about The Grid before he disappears into the night. However, it's not  quite Bridges. Using the aging technology pioneered in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, they have created the young Bridges, to play himself, and his digital son, Clu. The level of this effect is brilliant, to a point where you have to remind yourself that he is just CG.

Snap forward several years, and we run into Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund) weaving his way through cars on a Ducati Sport Classic 1000 to play a prank on Encom on the relase of their latest OS.

Sam promptly gets zapped into the Grid, and while being taken to be suited up in his strip-light armour, complete with disc on his back and thrown into the gladitorial games, we get a good look at the Grid, with it's luminescent architecture and reflective surfaces, it is similar to the city fly-by that was present in the opening credits, but on a much grander scale.

Entered unwillingly into the gladiator games which viewers of Tron will remember, the ring battle is a flurry of deja-vu, and the lightcycle event even more so, but with the latest effects they are flung away from the 80's offering. That is until he is saved by Quorra (Wilde) and taken off-Grid to where his father is hiding from Clu.

The lightcycle scene has to be one of the best throughout the film, with exquisite effects. The bikes weave ribbons of liquid-like light that destroys whatever touches it in an, again, fluidic explosion and scattering of derezzed pixels everywhere, a brilliant scene which is reflected towards the end of the film with the light-jet fight offering more luscious effects.

The other high point is, obviously, the soundtrack. Created and mixed by Daft Punk, who even cameo in Castor/Zuse's (Michael Sheens) club as the resident DJ's. This is a most fitting film for the pair whose electronic music is perfect for the beautifully luminous setting of the Grid.

The only downside is the story, which turns out to be very predictable, quite cheesy in places, and not as good overall as they could have made it. However, the score and the special effects are more than enough to keep your mind thoroughly blown.

Legacy reflects the original Tron in so many ways, trying to beat a giant airship to a destination, the light-train, and with Flynn's ability to control and re-write the Grid to his own desires. It also shows the level of graphics that are apparent both back in '82 and '10, with the differences being stark, but the effect no less brilliant. In 28 years we will probably look back on Legacy in the same way we look back on Tron, but instead of thinking 'Wow this is so fantastically 80's' we'll be thinking 'How teenies!' (Or whatever this decade's going to be called!)

I cannot urge people enough to go and see this film, just so you can immerse yourself in a 3D world that even puts Pandora to shame.