It’s been a decade and a half since audiences have visited the Grid. That all changes Friday, when Tron: Ares hits theaters. The movie stars Jared Leto as a Program named Ares who is sent on a mission into the real world that ends up changing his programming, the fabric of the digital realm and the future of humanity.
It’s a sonic boom of a sci-fi movie; an audio-visual spectacle worth seeing on the biggest screen possible. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that Tron: Ares is pretty much the best Tron movie. With style and story notes reminiscent of The Matrix, Blade Runner and The Terminator, Tron: Ares doesn’t reinvent the wheel one bit. It doesn’t really have to.
The last time we entered Kevin Flynn’s (Jeff Bridges) digital world was in 2010’s Tron: Legacy. That sequel came 28 years after the original Tron movie revolutionized the use of special effects in cinema. However, the neon-splashed return to the Tron universe, while expanding on some key details within the story canon, fell flat with audiences, and the planned sequel never saw the light of day.
What a difference 15 years can make.
Greta Lee, Jared Leto and Arturo Castro star in Tron: Ares.
It doesn’t take much to get caught up in Tron: Ares, and you don’t need to be familiar with the events that happened in the previous movies. A stylized sequence at the beginning of the film, featuring news reports, brings the audience up to speed on past events and the present-day drama unfolding within the tech world.
Two tech giants, Dillinger Systems, run by the egomaniacal Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), and Encom, led by the tortured yet hopeful Eve Kim (Greta Lee), are engaged in a heated AI arms race, so to speak. The search for a specific line of code is what sends Ares to the real world to begin with.
Like the original Tron, this one’s story beats are spread a bit thin over the near two-hour running time, laying out a plot that feels somewhat shallow. And like the original, Ares is chock full of jaw-dropping visuals and amazing effects that, for me anyway, made the lack of plot a nonissue.
A significant reason for this is the emotional stakes that form the movie’s foundation. We find out early on that Eve is struggling with her purpose while dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one. Ares, like Tron: Legacy’s Quorra (Olivia Wilde) before him, is a Program with an unfettered curiosity about existence beyond the Grid. The duo end up on a collision course, and it’s their dynamic and chemistry that help carry things, even through the parts where the plot is all but nonexistent.
I’m mostly familiar with Lee as a comedic actor, but she proved she can hold her own as a dramatic lead here. Tron: Ares is a showcase of strong female characters, with Lee leading the charge alongside Jodie Turner-Smith (formidable as Athena) and Gillian Anderson, who, while shamefully underused, elevates the one-note character of Elisabeth Dillinger into someone with gravitas and grace.
Jared Leto and Jeff Bridges star in Tron: Ares.
As Ares, Leto gets the job done. As do Evan Peters and Jeff Bridges, who once again makes a cameo in this sequel as Flynn. Each of them, though, embodies a character that lacks depth. Bridges can get away with that — Flynn is a legend in the Tron canon and, after four decades, I can forgive him showing up in a robe and doing his best elder Jedi schtick.
Ares and Dillinger feel like characters who were specifically designed to move the story forward. Each lacks the real depth that would make a viewer fully latch on or care about what they’re doing. Without Lee and Turner-Smith to play opposite, Leto’s performance would probably fall flat.
All this may be a deal-breaker to other moviegoers, but thanks to the special effects and penetrating soundscape provided by Nine Inch Nails, Tron: Ares never felt like it lost a step with me. Yes, I am speaking as a middle-aged man — which is important to note, as there were many times through my viewing of the film that I felt a nostalgic pang of jealousy for all the kids who will get to enjoy the toys that will most certainly be released as tie-ins to the movie.
Tron: Ares hits theaters on Friday.
In fact, every vehicle introduced in Tron: Ares left me feeling invigorated, as if I was also somehow getting the Transformers movie I always wanted. Here, there are Grid jets, Grid boats, a Grid tank, and, as you’ve seen in the trailer, a gargantuan Recognizer that breaches the real world and truly is a sight to behold.
Nostalgia plays a significant role here, with numerous nods to the original, including a major sequence that had me audibly clapping at the screen.
Tron: Ares presents numerous high-concept ideas, but fails to explore them with any real depth. AI is at the forefront here. Grief, sentience, mortality, our relationship and reliance on technology and AI’s potential for good — which is something I rarely see in movies — are all touched on here. But like the plot, there’s not much substance underneath the shiny veneer.
Greta Lee stars in Tron: Ares.
If the movie’s end is any signifier, perhaps this is by design. Maybe Tron: Ares is Disney’s attempt to reboot this iconic franchise. Ideas are introduced and the film closes on a two-fold cliffhanger that, if the box office justifies it, may lead to more Tron. Here’s hoping that the next one, if we get a next one, won’t shy away from going deeper.
This is the most enjoyable Tron movie of the bunch, a kinetic extravaganza of light and sound. It satiated my inner child and made me excited about Tron again. It may just be the blockbuster Disney needs right now. It’s what I needed, so I have no complaints.
