Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Tron: Ares

Title: Tron: Ares
Describe This Movie Using One Dragnet Quote:
FRIDAY: Reckless endangerment of human life, willful disregard of private property, failure to signal for a lane change.
STREEBECK: Yeah, he’s really raking up the violations, isn’t he?
FRIDAY: Not him, you.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Tech CEO teams up with sentient security program played by Jared Leto … wait, come back!
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Frankenstein’s monsters out of 5.

Tagline: “No going back.”
Better Tagline: “Stop trying to make A.I. happen.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: ENCOM, the tech/gaming company formerly run by Kevin Flynn, is in a race with Dillinger Systems to obtain something called the Permanence Code, which will allow objects rendered in our world from cyberspace to outlast their current 29-minute lifespan. ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has the inside track, as the code is hidden in one of Flynn’s old gaming servers. However, rival CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) has a trick up his sleeve: a security program named “Ares” (Jared Leto) that may or may not have more human goals in mind.

“Critical” Analysis: Tron was always a weird choice for a franchise property. The 1982 original — still the most visually arresting movie about intellectual property disputes ever made — was lauded for its special effects*, but otherwise dragged for being a gorgeous snooze-fest. Somehow, director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, F1) convinced Disney to make a sequel nearly 30 years later. Tron: Legacy was, like its predecessor, incoherent yet pretty to look at.

Now it’s Joachim Rønning’s turn. Disney kept things in house by bringing on the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Maleficent director for our latest descent into the Grid. One thing you have to give to Tron: Ares that you couldn’t always say about the first two movies: it isn’t boring.

There are actually lots of things you can say about Ares. For one, Rønning and screenwriter Jesse Wigutow made the decision to set most of the action in the meatspace, where Dillinger (grandson of David Warner’s character from Tron and (presumably) son of Cillian Murphy’s uncredited Ed Jr. in Legacy) wants ENCOM’s code to shore up his pending A.I. contracts with the military. It’s a smart move — considering the groundbreaking F/X of the original were already old hat by 2010 — and helps ground the story.

Or as grounded as a story about sentient code repeatedly violating the First Law of Thermodynamics can be, anyway.

They also steer the protagonist arc mostly away from the Flynns. It’s the worst kept secret outside of Trump being named in the Epstein Files that Jeff Bridges is back in Ares (for maybe 10 minutes) as the virtual Kevin Flynn, but neither hide nor hair is to be seen of Garret Hedlund’s Sam, and that’s fine, really. Instead, we have Greta Lee’s Eve Kim, whose efforts to obtain the “permanence code” are propelled by the memory of her dead sister.

Ares is a pretty blatant attempt to perpetuate the myth that artificial intelligence is good, actually. Kim, in contrast to Dillinger, wants to use the technology’s potential to feed the hungry, help cure illnesses, and mitigate climate change. It would all be very inspiring if our current real world crop of pasty A.I. gurus weren’t singularly hellbent on wiping out lower sector jobs, depleting water reserves, and plagiarizing creatives.

But at the risk of sounding like Homer Simpson, where’s TRON? The names ENCOM and Dillinger are familiar, but Flynn is the only constant throughout all three movies, and his presence here is largely superfluous. The idea of a Grid-like cyberverse is now well-trod territory, and while it’s cool to see light cycles and Recognizers showing up on the streets of San Francisco Vancouver, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Rønning took creator Steven Lisberger’s original “aliens among us” inspiration, swapped out “aliens” for “A.I.,” and affixed a “Tron” label to it.

Your opinions about the previous movies aside (I honestly have almost no memory of Legacy), all three feature kickass soundtracks. Wendy Carlos’ original remains the gold standard, but Daft Punk was one of the only reasons to recommend Tron: Legacy. Here, Nine Inch Nails take over, and aside from the unremarkable “As Alive As You Need Me To Be,” their score absolutely propels the action in Ares.

It’s this same action that sets Ares apart from the first two, which one could charitably describe as “deliberative.” Ares ain’t that, with the Kim/Dillinger maneuvering only giving pause to the spectacle of a freeway light cycle chase or a Recognizer taking on fighter jets (piloted by NIN’s Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, yes really). Gillian Anderson, playing Julian’s mother Elisabeth, even gets in on the action, slapping her son when the scale of his hubris spins out of control.

I’m not even jealous, even though I’ve been longing to be slapped by Anderson for years.

As for the Leto of it all, he’s not bad, even if I can imagine his publicity tour amounting to, “Hi, I’m Jared Leto. Please go see my new movie, but don’t read my Wikipedia entry.” And if Ares is simultaneously a paragon of enlightened self-awareness while also being the baddest dude in virtual *and* physical reality, I’m sure it had nothing to do with Leto’s status as executive producer.

If you’re looking for a nuanced look at the ontological implications of artificial intelligence, I can recommend a few Substacks. Tron: Ares, on the other hand, is entertaining in the same way as an amusement park ride**. It’s loud, visually arresting, and the thrill wears off in minutes. It’s probably the lead Tron of all three movies, which might be why it’s my favorite so far.

*Fun fact: Tron was disqualified from the Best Visual Effects Oscar because the Academy viewed using computers as “cheating.”
**Ironically, not the the Light Cycle ride at Magic Kingdom, which sucks.

Tron: Ares is in theaters today.

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