It's not often the soundtrack for a film is awaited as itchily as the film itself. But Tron Legacy, the sequel to the influential 1982 thriller set inside a video game, has been scored by French electronic music heroes Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, more succinctly known as Daft Punk. Even while dancing with blacked-out motorcycle helmets on their heads, Daft Punk are a band unable to put a foot wrong. As rumours of their involvement began seeping out more than 18 months ago, retro-futurists everywhere began glowing neon.

Daft Punk's album of 2001, Discovery, cemented the duo as the most influential contemporary electronic band. Yes, their gimpy Power Ranger disguises paid knowing tribute to Kraftwerk's mensch-machines. But they rescued French pop from ridicule.

It might be stretching credulity to spandex proportions to lay the entire 00s synth-pop craze at their doorstep as well. But when the house music of Homework, Daft Punk's debut, morphed into a mischievous take on a previously scorned decade on Discovery, Daft Punk set a benchmark. Plaudits flowed in from LCD Soundsystem ("Daft Punk Is Playing at My House") and Kanye West. West's "Stronger" didn't so much sample Daft Punk as import Daft Punk's aesthetic wholesale. Since then, Daft Punk have been coasting, however. Their disappointing 2005 album, Human After All, was written in haste. Their 2007 film, Electroma, was well received, but featured none of their music. Their 2007 live album won a Grammy, but again, no new music.

Despite a decade of damp squibbing, however, Daft Punk's stock remains high. Fans routinely expect the next Daft Punk release to be another magnum opus, a game-changer. By any reckoning, the Tron sequel is the film Daft Punk were born to soundtrack, featuring, as it does, avatars wearing futuristic bike leathers and go-faster (harder-louder-stronger) helmets.

It is a film set inside a game. The soundtrack does mark a major change in the duo's sound. But that game-changing album is still some way off. In pre-release publicity, the band have been praising the staying power of the Stradivarius, a clue, perhaps, to the duo's approach to Tron. Somewhat dishearteningly, they have let rip with catgut, sounding, not like Daft Punk reinventing the film soundtrack, but instead, like a great many classical-aping film soundtracks that have gone before.

"Derezzed" is one glorious exception in which corrupted, gamey sonics motor along sensationally. The burbling, buzzing stroll of "End of Line" is another. But there are too few such innovations and too many "Adagios for Tron".

In situ, as light bikes race and weaponised Frisbees soar in this film vehicle about vehicles, Daft Punk's soundtrack will undoubtedly dispense plenty of awe. "Rectifier", particularly, seems made entirely from jangling nerves. But Tron is not the second coming of Daft; it is a canonical sound-bed first and a Daft Punk record very much second.