The void between the real world and The Grid is bridged in a corporate battle over 3-D printing in the auditorily stunning, visually uneven, and frustrating everything else Tron: Ares, from director Joachim Ronning.
Let’s admit: neither of the previous Tron films are classics. The first is a wonder in creative and forward-thinking filmmaking. It’s wholly unique, spellbinding, and a fun adventure. Tron: Legacy is alright, essentially retelling the first in a different lens. The franchise isn’t one of Disney’s biggest. An also ran, a “oh yeah, I saw that,” trudging along in memory and vague nostalgia.
It’s no wonder it takes so long between the films. They cover the same ground with upgrades to the tech built on it. Across the three Tron films, 1982’s of the basic title, 2010’s Tron: Legacy and now Tron: Ares (with a TV series, Uprising, mixed in. Side note: 90s cartoon Reboot might be the best Tron, even if it’s not offically), all find corporate types fighting over how to use technology through fighting within the computer to be a metaphor to the real world; the creative, lets save the world versus more money and power for the rich types. Thus, for 2025, Tron: Ares ultimately breaks down to two corporations fighting over a 3D printing app, causing countless casualties and damage along the way. Kinda silly when you think about it.
It’s a shallow mess. A usually entertaining mess, nonetheless, thriving on the technical aspects. Specifically, the sound. It’s best served approach of most of Tron: Ares an expensive Nine Inch Nails video than as a complete film. Director Joachim Ronning is best known for the big, brash, but rather empty Disney sequels Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. This trilogy of Disney sequels works best when they aren’t trying to talk. I rather liked his Kon-Tiki, though.
Tron: Ares always has a fantastic and wowing soundscape. The sound is all encompassing, engaging, and wear earplugs LOUD. The score by Nine Inch Nails is astounding, picking up from Wendy Carlos and Daft Punk. I’m lukewarm on the film, but I’m going to buy the soundtrack next time I’m at the record store. It’s that good. Reznor and Finch’s orchestrations have a booming, synth-heavy heartbeat, reminiscent of the scores of Tangerine Dream and Vangelis (Near Dark or Blade Runner, anyone?). This wonderful score, perhaps my favorite of the year, drives the movie. There are times when one can just zone out, bob their head, and get lost in the music powered by impressive visuals.
Sometimes, as it’s just visually impressive with some great work as it is loud and ugly. The designs of the various worlds, especially within the computers, look fantastic with plenty of intense and oversized creations. No skimping, it’s meant to be there as big and noticeable as can be. I saw Tron: Ares on IMAX, and when it works, it’s immersive. But every “oh wow” moment has a “that’s a lot of generated gibberish” overloading the screen. Scaling back the overload would do the film well. However, the non-special effects-laden sequences are awkwardly shot and edited, with much “wait, what?” in the shots and what happens within. Ronning does not do well when working with people or script over action.
Outside of the technical specs, Tron: Ares is a total mess. The script by Jesse Wigutow is a silly mishmash of half-thought-out ideas with little depth and more than a handful of ‘memberberries. As noted, there are prime examples to talk about AI or what humanity is; the sentience of programs has been a throughline of iffy ideas and afterthoughts across the three. The McGuffin has the two sides (one good because it’s light blue in color; the other EVIL because it’s BRIGHT RED, very subtle) racing for a Permanance Code that will keep their 3-D printed creations from screaming into the void as they painfully derezz (what a weird bit of body horror). Odd that non-organics also melt into nothingness, but I suppose that’s easier to deal with and creates a ticking time bomb for goals or survival. People and programs alike go into and out of various grids, engaging in thrilling but empty action sequences. Also strange is that they don’t mention the “this printing could create infinite food and medicine” at the start, making it seem like Nintendo and Xbox are using their mascots to fight over the next console. The writing across the board is silly and lacking. There are THREE long exposition drops, to catch up the viewer who forgot what happened previously (most of them I’d venture), one to explain what is happening now, and, sigh, one where Ares mansplains (program-splains?) a woman’s history and emotional thoughts to her. Pointed lines and callbacks fall flat, and the humor is hit or miss. What hits seem like ad-libs from the comedian side characters like Arturo Castro and Hasan Minhaj.
Performances can’t save Tron: Ares from deletion. Greta Lee, coming off charming and wonderful in Past Lives, is atrocious. None of her lines land with verisimilitude. They have a quality of “I’m reading this for the first time and trying not to laugh” flatness. She has several sidekicks i all of whom can be codified into one, or none if we didn’t need someone for her talk to when Ares isn’t near; as such, they exit the film for stretches.. Speaking of thinking out loud, Gillian Anderson is wasted in channeling Margaret Thatcher, existing to be a sounding board for the “aint’ it fun to be evil” performance by Evan Peters. The pair are family to David Warner’s 1982 villain Dillinger because it’s a legacy sequel, I guess. Both vanish from the narrative for far too long. Weirdly, Jared Leto gives the best go, as a program learning to be human and love (an aspect treated like a 10-year-old with his first crush). It helps that Leto is strange and weird as a person; his “existing in another plane of reality” nature works for the film. (I’ll leave it to others to speak to Leto being the wrong leading man for this… or any other franchise). But the person having the most fun with it is Jodie Turner-Smith as vengeful program Athena. She steals whenever she’s around.
BTW, yes, Jeff Bridges is in the cast. I think they had him for an hour, tops. And there’s no Bruce Boxleitner. I think Disney is banking on most viewers not remembering that Tron is a character in the other films.
Tron: Ares is a shallow mess as a film. But as a two-hour music video, it’s a pulse-pounding joy. Log on for the soundtrack and (most of) the visuals. Don’t bother to upload your brain.