A brave man may declare Tron to be Disney’s most interesting franchise, and I do declare it. Back in the 80s, what manifested as a pseudo-experimental outing that attempted to visualise a digital world, tapping aspirations about the dawn of the computer age, has endured in the public consciousness. The Tron films aren’t the most popular in terms of box office, but are visually and thematically unlike most others.
Tron: Ares, the latest instalment, is fully aware of the status of its predecessors. Unfortunately, its execution proves to be incompatible with that legacy.
Set 15 years after the events of Tron: Legacy (2010), the film follows Eve Kim (played by Greta Lee), head of technology company ENCOM, who is racing to discover the secrets left behind by former programmer and company head Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Trying to keep up with Eve is Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), head of a rival firm and under the watchful eye of his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson). In an attempt to get ahead of the competition, Dillinger dispatches a highly trained and dangerous computer program designated Ares (Jared Leto) into our reality.
Very quickly, worlds start to collide as Ares and Eve race to uncover Flynn’s secrets, while other programs, including Ares’s sinister second-in-command, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), wreak neon-drenched havoc, culminating in a battle between programs and users for the future of technology.
That synopsis may sound rather non-descriptive, but it is pretty accurate for what is, easily, the film’s most damaging defect. While valid criticism can be leveled against the previous outings for featuring weak storytelling and characters, Tron: Ares digs itself a deeper hole thanks to a derivative plot, which is the result of trying to reconcile the Tron mythos with humanity’s current relationship with technology.
Tron has always had a flavour of the fantastical, even exploring hard themes of religion in its depiction of an evocative but threatening world inside the computer. Alongside science fiction writers of the time, 1982’s Tron can actually be credited with predicting the advent of artificial intelligence and cloud computing, where all devices and systems interact with each other on a globally-connected web. The original film is governed by that depiction: a place where programs ride around on cycles powered by light, traversing roads made of hardened pixels. 2010’s Tron: Legacy fully understood that brief and the result was a movie duology that looks, sounds, and feels like no other films that came before or after them.
Writer Jesse Wigutow’s attempt to tell a story about AI, self-actualisation, and corporate greed, combined with director Joachim Rønning’s taking a more industrial and grounded approach to the material, leads to Tron: Ares losing its impact, and Tron distinctiveness. Even attempting to tap into nostalgia for the 1982 film by featuring Jeff Bridges isn’t enough. You lose a sense of escapism when the digital world of the Grid is just a server farm in a basement, and you’re watching two tech CEOs go to war over a piece of IP.
The character work isn’t much better in Tron: Ares. Both the motivations of Ares and Eve Kim aren’t well defined, making them neither sympathetic nor compelling. The same can be said for the acting. Jared Leto is being robotic on purpose, so he doesn’t need to exert himself, but Greta Lee is given very little to work with. Hilariously, as it turns out with so many Disney films, the villains overshadow the heroes with their charisma and style, as Gillian Anderson and, especially, Evan Peters deliver over-the-top, but still sophisticated performances. The real stand-out of the film’s cast, though, is Jodie Turner-Smith, whose turn as the program Athena is clinical, ruthless, and incredibly intimidating.
The big things that save Tron: Ares from the recycle bin are the things that always made the franchise great to experience on the big screen. Though it has to account for what the current computer age actually looks like, the film showcases visuals and an aesthetic that is entirely its own. Lifting people, vehicles and weapons out of the Grid and shifting them into reality makes for striking visuals and high-octane action scenes. Those scenes are also well-paced, keeping the energy high throughout the film’s runtime.
Second to those visuals is the audio, with Tron: Ares boasting a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails – a fact that has featured heavily in its promotion. Band members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have long established themselves as two of the most innovative composers working in Hollywood today (even winning Oscars), and their score for this film reinforces that reputation. The standard of music in Tron films was set stupidly high by the score for Tron: Legacy, but NIN succeeds in contrasting Daft Punk’s electric orchestrals with a sound that could be described as sharp, abrasive, and even angry.
Like both films before it, the spectacular strengths of Tron: Ares are weighed down by its fundamental weaknesses. No one ever goes to see a Tron movie for the plot, but Ares does a disservice to its legacy by foregoing lofty ambitions in favour of being edgy. Unlike so much digital content today, it won’t leave you glued to your screen.
Tron: Ares released in cinemas on 10 October.
| Tron: Ares review | |
While its sights and sounds are up to scratch for the sci-fi franchise, Tron: Ares is ephemeral in its execution thanks to disengaged storytelling and a lack of compelling characters. |
5 |
| Tron: Ares was reviewed on the big screen | |