“Tron: Legacy” brings back an older, much more wildly known and critically acclaimed Jeff Bridges to reprise the role of Kevin Flynn and his evil alter ego Clu. Alongside his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund), Flynn uses his godlike power inside The Grid to defeat Clu in a race to the portal that leads back to a much duller world called Earth.

The film is carried by director Joseph Kosinski’s imagination, which comes to life using computer-generated imagery to showcase the brightly lit and beautiful nerd heaven. Filled with action sequences and amazing special effects, the film lacks contemporary plot devices, has breaks in the story and is generally void of storytelling.

For moviegoers who have not seen the original “Tron,” the movie will come off as disjointed and surreal in Jorge Borges’ massive acid trip kind of way. The underlying themes of genocide and demonic doppelgangers plague the movie with more questions than answers.

However, no one can ever accuse Kosinski of being cheap, traditional or worst of all, lame. With “Tron: Legacy” — Kosinski’s first Hollywood feature film – he effectively emptied the pocketbooks of Walt Disney Pictures.

“Tron: Legacy” had an operating budget of some $300 million. That’s enough dough for the entire U.S. population to have one medium-sized, grilled chicken pizza, topped with green peppers, onions and banana peppers — or, you know, make a movie.

The film is the sequel to “Tron” (1982), which is based on the unlimited potential of Internet combined with the personal computer. “Tron: Legacy” effectively bridges the technological gap between what could be and has happened in the past 28 years — laptops, Wi-Fi, the fall of the Soviet Union — and pushes that concept further in an age when computers are ubiquitous.

“Tron” was ahead of its time even by sci-fi standards. For me, it is among the pantheon of all-time great cyberspace thrillers like “The Matrix” and “Virtuosity.”

This film was a courageous move on the part of Disney. But when you have a monorail, a graphic novel and a video game riding on the production of one movie, you had better go all-in.