Tron: Ares review

TRON: ARES: 

A VISUALLY DAZZLING, NEON-FILLED LIGHT SHOW WITH A VERY AVERAGE THREEQUEL SURROUNDING IT! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

DISNEY

The programs enter our world in Tron: Ares

 

            The digital world of the Grid is back in Tron: Ares, the third installment of the Tron film series after the groundbreaking 1982 original which revolutionized computer animation and its 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy. I really like the first Tron movie and will gladly call it a game-changer in visual effects especially for the time it was made with a unique look, fascinating themes and ideas that still hit home today, and decent characters, not a perfect film but rightfully deserves to be considered a landmark in filmmaking. 

            The 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy I also enjoyed a lot though it’s nowhere near as groundbreaking as its predecessor. It’s a fun popcorn movie with dazzling and flashy action scenes, a plot that does expand upon the world and ideas of Tron, and Jeff Bridges going up against himself, great 3D movie experience (This was also around the same time James Cameron’s Avatar was all the rage). 

            Now we have this third film with Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Young Woman and the Sea) in the director’s chair and starring the Hollywood punchline himself, Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club, Blade Runner 2049, Morbius). It’s no surprise that I’m not a Jared Leto fan as I personally think he’s too full of himself and often gets carried away with his method acting so, I wasn’t exactly onboard for him leading a Tron movie especially when I was hoping for a direct continuation of Legacy. 

            But the trailers looked promising and I really dig the idea of the Tron world entering ours which had a lot of potential given today’s obsession with AI. Even with Leto’s involvement, I was able to excuse that because I thought this was a solid premise for a Tron movie and even if it pales in comparison to the other two, I just love this franchise’s world. 

            The good news is Tron: Ares is a visually stunning movie to watch on the big screen and the ideas it does explore are interesting…the film itself however is a mess! I’m not calling this movie terrible or anything, but this third adventure on the Grid left me feeling rather empty and indifferent by the end. 

            The film is set 15 years after the events of Tron: Legacy and follows a program named Ares (Leto) who is brought from the Grid and into the real world (For only 29 minutes at a time) by Dillinger Systems CEO, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters-Invasion, Kick-Ass, X-Men franchise) to retrieve a permanence code (A code that will allow Ares to stay in the real world longer than 29 minutes without facing deresolution) created by programmer, Kevin Flynn with his only lead being ENCOM CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee-Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Past Lives, A House of Dynamite). However, Ares begins to evolve and grows a conscious as he and Eve team up to find Kevin’s permanence code and stop Julian’s plan while another destructive program named Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith-The Last Ship, Queen & Slim, Murder Mystery 2) enters the real world to hunt Ares so, they have to stop her too. 

            The film also stars Hasan Minhaj (The Spy Who Dumped Me, No Hard Feelings, It Ends with Us) as Ajay Patel, Arturo Castro (Broad City, Narcos, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story) as Seth Flores, Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The House of Mirth, Sex Education) as Elisabeth Dillinger, and Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, Iron Man, True Grit (2010)) reprising his role from the previous films as Kevin Flynn. 

            Overall, Tron: Ares is absolutely impressive on a technical level and does deserve to be seen on the big screen, but the film itself leaves a lot to be desired. The setup is great and lends itself to a lot of possibilities, the programs and machines from the Grid entering the real world and showing how the two worlds interact with one another, unfortunately the movie doesn’t really do much with this premise. 

            Usually when a program, light-cycle, or one of those flying ships from Tron enters the real world, it’s mainly just an excuse for an action sequence which are spectacular, but for a film with this kind of premise, it pains me to see them barely scratch the surface with this. The world we live in now has AI as both an exciting and terrifying invention and compared to other movies like Ex-Machina, Companion, or the first M3GAN where they did something really clever and creative with a premise revolving around artificial intelligence and how far we should go with it, Tron’s take on it was disappointing. 

            Leto and Lee to their credit aren’t phoning in their performances nor is the former being an obnoxious schmuckhead, but their characters aren’t that endearing unfortunately and the dialogue is bad. Sure, Tron: Legacy had some cheesy dialogue, but the charm of characters like Sam, Quorra, and Kevin carried through the silly moments, this is bad MCU-level dialogue where side characters are annoying and constantly trying to make jokes or quips and none of it lands. 

            The soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails is freaking awesome and even though I wasn’t exactly invested in the story or characters, their music accompanying these neon-filled visuals was almost hypnotizing. It works in a similar way Daft Punk did with Tron: Legacy and just like that movie, I went and got the soundtrack on iTunes after seeing it, it’s good stuff. 

            Aside from stunning visuals, a kickass score, and a few interesting ideas being explored, Tron: Ares is a pretty disappointing third adventure on the Grid that wastes its fascinating premise on action scenes, obnoxious humor, and dull characters. It is still worth seeing in theaters and especially IMAX but coming off of the 1982 Tron and Tron: Legacy, we have a long way for these artificial programs to gain a human touch.