Over two decades ago Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) had disappeared from this world and was nowhere to be found. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) one night, after getting word from a friend of the family, heads down to his father’s office only to find himself brought into the digital world that his father designed and has been imprisoned in for the last two decades. Sam must now use all his tact to try and free him and his father from Kevin’s creation that’s gone wrong.

The original film was released in 1982, nearly thirty years ago, and to say that we’ve had some serious technological upgrades since then is an understatement. Even though the original rests close to my heart I still admit to how ugly the film looks from the perspective of someone who’s grown up with visual effects of films like The Matrix as a staple.

This film did graphically – most of the time at least – what the original wanted to do three decades ago and just couldn’t due to their technological limitations back then. But then when I think back I have to say that the graphics were good but never outstanding. When I think about last year’s Watchmen it’s easy to see that this film just wasn’t able to fully realize this digital world as beautiful as it wanted to. Even though the design was definitely what the filmmakers were going for I couldn’t help but feel from time to time – especially when seeing the actors interact with this world – that it just didn’t work, and the 3D didn’t wow me in a way that other 3D films did sadly.

What I did enjoy was the entire grandness of the adventure here. Once we’re actually on the grid and we watch Sam being pushed into the games and he’s doing his thing it’s fun. Even from the beginning where he’s pretty much the equivalent of the Ethan Hunt of internet pirates, while actually never being an actual criminal, we see that this guy is just one of those guys who just never wants to go corporate. On the grid however he’s left to just survive challenge to challenge, and it’s fun even though it’s not exactly the most convoluted plot.

Jeff Bridges after wowing me last week with his performance in True Grit returns to phoning it in here. He digs deep into the camp bag and puts more than enough Lebowski style wording and inflections that makes you just see that this techie has become the biggest stoner that you’ve ever met. It’s not completely distracting, because even though it definitely doesn’t fit into the working of the story I think the movie would’ve been better served if they wrote him out and just made it about Sam escaping rather than having him to have to carry around his father for the entire trip.

One massive surprise for me is the role of Castor (Michael Sheen). He’s the proprietor of a club that Sam ends up going to try and help escape from the grid. Michael Sheen has played so many memorable roles and definitely is one of those actors that needs more of a chance to stay in the spotlight. He’s famous for his role as Tony Blair in The Queen but this time around he channelled his inner David Bowie to bring out this fun character who’s just jamming to the tracks of Daft Punk. I just want a TV talk show with Sheen playing that character and nothing more.

Where this movie truly fails to be the good action movie that it wants to be is in the third act. Later on in the film we discover what CLU’s plan is and how certain characters from the original film fit into things. Late on in the game a character switches teams so abruptly that honestly I think the writers just got fed up with being unable to really do anything with him and just turned the car around as far as the story goes.

Overall it’ a fun movie and has some really good aspects but in the end it turns out to be a pretty much forgettable action movie that made me smile for the runtime but when I have too many films that are better than this to hold up on a pedestal rather than this one.

IMDB says 7.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 49%

I say 7.0/10