I’m back! And Happy New Year to ya. Seen any good movies lately?

I didn’t think I’d ever see a film like TRON LEGACY (cue sound effects of speeding motorcycles here), but when you have an adorable 7-year-old boy begging you to take him, you start thinking, “Well, maybe it’ll be OK.” Plus, I know in a few years he’ll be too cool to see a movie with his mom.

So — I spent two hours watching men and women in tight fluorescent suits speed around on digital motorcycles shooting light disks at each other. It was bizarre — and fun! We wore our 3D glasses, and I felt like I’d blasted away into a new world. It was an experience beyond what I’m used to, being that I’m mostly a fan of romantic comedies.

The plot centers around a boy, Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund), whose dad, Kevin Flynn, disappeared 20 years ago. We later find out that Sam’s dad has somehow been stuck inside the virtual world of Tron, a video game he invented. (Tron was apparently popular in the 80s — how did I miss this? I guess I was too busy playing Atari Frogger.)

Sam Flynn spends his early life wondering why his father left him. I really love how the movie director showed the passage of time. Young Sam rides off on his bicycle, you see him speeding along, then he gradually morphs into a 20-something guy riding a motorcyle, still searching for his dad.

There’s a scene where he steps into Flynn’s Arcade, the place where his father used to work, and it’s creepy-eerie for those of us who remember going to arcades. All the games are covered in dusty plastic sheets. It made me feel old!

Sam discovers a hidden room behind the Tron game, and he inadvertently enters through the same portal his dad entered years before. Here, in “the Grid,” he must constantly fight bad guys to preserve his life. Sam finds his missing father, played by Jeff Bridges, but there’s now a digital clone of his dad who has become his arch enemy, Clu.

As I was watching the film, I almost couldn’t stand the fast pace. I liked this guy, Sam, and I wanted him to live! So I kept eating my popcorn faster and FASTER, fearing that every second he might die! Once I’d inhaled my small popcorn, I searched my purse and came up with some Altoids. You can’t eat those too fast, but they kept me busy for a while.

Then I began to like Quorra, played by Olivia Wilde, and I was rooting for both her and Sam to somehow survive this wild mess of virtual battle scenes. I needed more popcorn — or Junior Mints — or something! All this action was intense!

Instead, I discovered some chapstick; well, what I thought was chapstick. I put some on, and since it was just chapstick, I put on plenty. When the movie ended (wow! what a final scene!), I waved and smiled at people as we left the theater, not knowing there was something wrong with my face.

Until … I stepped back into our house, doing a few Olivia Wilde TRON kicks with sound effects to impress my other kids who’d missed out on the movie. My oldest daughter’s eyes got really big when she saw me, and she said, “Mom, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE? Did you, like, get a Tron make-over?”

So I looked in the mirror, and — horrors! — I’d somehow mistaken flesh-colored cover-up for chapstick. My lips were nearly invisible. I looked a little bit like one of the Sirens from Tron. Scary!

So, my opinion is that Tron was fun to watch in 3D. I don’t see how it could compare to seeing it in your home on regular DVD. I’m sure there will be a lot of kids wanting to wear Tron costumes with those laser stripes for Halloween. From a mom’s view, there was no kissing and very little violence, except for video people dissolving into tiny colorful squares. It was similar to Star Wars, with the aircraft scenes.

Still, since the whole theme of the movie revolves around a son trying to rescue his dad, and their relationship, I’d recommend this to be a better movie for fathers and sons to see together.

With plenty of popcorn!