Disney basically released a film as a follow-up to a 1982 Jeff Bridges film that most people, if they weren’t hardcore sci-fi fans, would have forgotten about and everyone was sure it would flop. It didn’t – it became an instant classic that the new generation loved, the Daft Punk soundtrack became a must have item and the film was so well loved that even a decade a half later the film is still a regular re-run in IMAX cinemas right around the world.
Many thought that Disney would want to follow it up straight away with another Tron film but aside from a short lived television series Tron fans have had nothing up until now with the arrival of Tron: Ares in cinemas.
If you are expecting Tron: Ares to rest heavily on the storyline of Tron: Legacy think again. This is its own special beast which sees screenwriter Jesse Wigutow (Daredevil: Born Again) steer the story in a new direction. Yes there is a nod to the original Tron which the inclusion of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges – The Big Lebowski) in a very big way but the references to Tron: Legacy are kept to a frustrating low – but more on that later.
The focal points of Tron: Ares are Eve Kim (Greta Lee – Past Lives) and Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters – X-Men: Days of Future Past). Both are running tech companies that are trying to harness the technology to be able to download items and people out of The Grid (think a huge cloud software dimension) and have them generate into the actual item on Earth.
The difference is that Kim is trying to create things like fruit, vegetables and plants so that starving nations can have a steady supply of food while Dillinger wants to use the technology to create military hardware and soldiers that can be sold to countries for profit.
He has the technology to the point where he can ‘download’ military vehicles and super-soldiers like Ares (Jared Leto – Suicide Squad) and Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith – Queen & Slim) but they only last half an hour before they disintegrate.
Dillinger thinks he has won the ‘game’ and plans to just iron out the quirks but he finds out that Kim knows more than the company has talked about publicly after getting Ares to hack his rival’s system. He then decides to take desperate measures to make sure his company wins – measures that even terrify his own mother (Gillian Anderson – The X-Files).
Divided
Tron: Ares is a film that will divide fans – hell it has even divided me internally. On one side there are things I love about this film.
Director Joachim Ronning (Maleficant: Mistress of Evil) and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network) have made this movie look amazing. Whether it be scenes within The Grid or chase sequences through city streets the film looks like a piece of neon artwork. Then there is the soundtrack created by Nine Inch Nails which is not only a work of brilliance on its own but also enhances the neon and futuristic feel to the film.
Then there is also the fact that this film explores a theme that we have seldom seen on the big screen previously. Normally when AI characters are included in films that were developed for the good of mankind and then become ‘evil’. It began with the robot films of the 1950s and 1960s and then of course became the ‘in’ thing after James Cameron’s The Terminator.
But here things are a little different. Ares has been developed to kill first and think later – he has basically been created to do the evil biddings of Dillinger. Yet after hacking into Kim’s files he learns about the existence of good – and that is something that intrigues him. The best part of Tron: Ares is watching the acting performance of Leto as Ares battles with the notion that perhaps he should be ‘good’ instead of ‘evil.’ If this was supposed to just be a big dumb action film then someone forgot to tell Leto because he takes his acting spectrum to 200%.
The annoying thing about Tron: Ares is though it seems determined to forget that Tron: Legacy ever existed. The whole downloading a human from The Grid occurred in that movie with the character of Quorra (Olivia Wilde – Don’t Worry Darling) but seems to be forgotten about here. That will infuriate fans of the series there is no doubt about that.
As I said previously Tron: Ares will divide fans but if you don’t mind a fairly decent action flick that at times feels like a music video clip then you won’t be disappointed. The good over evil, Jared Leto and Nine Inch Nails are what saves this movie and will make sure you still have a good time.
Tron: Ares is currently screening in Phuket and is rated ‘13’
3/5 Stars
David Griffiths has been working as a film journalist for over 25 years. That time has seen him work in radio, television and in print. He currently hosts a film podcast called The Popcorn Conspiracy. He is also a Rotten Tomatoes accredited reviewer and is an alternate judge for the Golden Globes Awards. You can follow him at Facebook: SubcultureEntertainmentAus.