It’s been over a decade since Tron: Legacy hit theaters with its jaw-dropping visuals and one of the all-time excellent film scores from Daft Punk. Now, Tron: Ares tries to soft-reboot the series, but even with the slick Tron look and a killer soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails, it’s a disappointing third entry in the franchise.
Jared Leto stars as Ares, a new digital security program brought into the real world by Dillenger Systems and recklessly arrogant CEO Julian Dillenger (Evan Peters). Tasked with tracking down the “Permanence Code” discovered decades ago by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) that will allow digital beings to remain in the real world (there’s around a 30 minute window established for anything without the permanence code where they derezz when the time limit is reached), it’s now in the hands of ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee), which makes her the target of these digtial super soliders. Leto, Evan Peters, and Greta Lee all feel wasted in roles that never give them anything interesting to do. The story moves from one scene to the next without building any real emotional connection, so you never really care what happens to anyone. Bringing the beings and vehicles of Tron into the real world also seems kind of cool on paper, but in execution, it just looks goofy. The movie spends a lot of time in the real world rather than The Grid, which was absolutely the wrong call, since The Grid’s stylish neon landscapes are what people actually come to a Tron movie to see. When we do get glimpses of The Grid, it looks fine, but it also feels smaller and less alive than the one in Legacy, as we’re going into isolated servers that are cut off from the larger digital frontier, and no interesting side characters like Michael Sheen’s Zuse to fill out the world. It’s like how movies like Masters of the Universe back in the day spent barely any time in the place fans wanted to see, and most of the movie took place in a random city or suburb to save money. The Tron visuals are good overall with the trademark light-up suits, light cycles, Recognizers, and other iconic Tron imagery, but it’s missing that sense of scale and awe. Legacy felt like stepping into another universe; Ares feels like a smaller, flatter imitation.
The soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails definitely stands out as one of the best parts of the movie, but it doesn’t mesh as naturally with the Tron world as Daft Punk’s score did. There’s also not much variety between tracks, so it all kind of blends together after a while. I’ve listened to the Daft Punk score dozens of times since Legacy came out, but I don’t know if I will listen to the Ares soundtrack, except maybe the end credits track “As Alive As You Need Me to Be.”
What’s maybe most disappointing, though, is how Ares seems to completely ignore most of the plot threads and ideas set up in Tron: Legacy. There’s barely any mention of Sam Flynn, Quorra, or the aftermath of what happened at the end of that movie. It feels like Disney hit a reset button instead of building on what was already there, which makes Ares feel disconnected from the rest of the series. It also feels dumbed down and simplified compared to Legacy, with an uninteresting MacGuffin in the Permanence code, and it’s just a simple chase as first Ares and then Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) hunt down Eve. Legacy had the father and son dynamic between Sam and Flynn, the corruption of Tron into Rinzler (Bruce Boxleitner), the emergence of a new species in the I/Os and more that was much more interesting but were completely dropped for Ares. It also has some pandering fan service to the original Tron, with a location later in the film that hasn’t evolved since the 80s, but it’s all “memberberries” — just using the visuals of the 80s movie and expecting the audience to point and clap.
Tron: Ares has moments of visual flair and a solid soundtrack, but it’s ultimately a disappointing return to the digital frontier, and, given its box office performance, this may be the last time we ever head into The Grid, which would be a sad end to a cult favorite franchise.
