Tron: Ares Review

After waiting so many years we finally have a new Tron movie, sadly it's not a direct sequel to Legacy but hopefully something good comes out it.

Tron: Ares is a sci-fi action movie and the sequel to Tron: Legacy thus making it the third film of the franchise, with production done by both Walt Disney Pictures and Sean Bailey Productions with Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures doing distribution. It's written by Jesse Wigutow and David DiGilio and directed by Joachim Rønning.

The story is, business rivals Julian Dillinger and Eve Kim are both after Kevin Lynn's permanence code. Julian has managed to bring digital constructs to the real world, but they only last for 29 minutes. Meanwhile Eve has successfully cracked the code. Now, Julian brings his program Ares to the real world and assigns him to find Eve and bring the code to him. But when Ares shows self-awareness and an interest in our world, this'll lead to an all put battle.

Initial Reaction

Now unlike a lot of online personalities, I was actually looking forward to this. So no I wasn't considering Jared Leto some sort of pariah nor am I gonna solely blame him for the reason for why this movie could possibly bomb. Doesn't really seem fair to blame Leto when Disney barely marketed the damn thing. But regardless, you should know that despite interest or excitement, I'll still be honest with my review.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

Alright speaking of that honest, let's dive into the stuff that was so close to being good but didn't quite get there. Starting off with the characters. Yeah some of these new characters just didn't work. I was attached to Ares because while his story is an A.I. getting self-aware and having an identity crisis, at least it was something. Ares' arc while familiar does tap into a Tron's question of what makes a being "real". But one character fumble comes from Eve. With her story it's very muddled. At one point it feels like she's doing it for a lost loved one, but you do forget about that because it felt tacked on and her story does feel more like her wanting to one up and stop Julian. Speaking of arcs, let's dive deeper into the story. Other than character arcs, the other slight issue stems from the movie does ask some pretty good questions. The biggest of which is weaponizing A.I. Now that's a very real and very up to date question giving how we have A.I. like Grok. But the story doesn't really go any deeper. It's mainly just surface level or not talked about again.

Pros

First let's get into the action. While I did like the chase scenes on the Light Cycles, I always preferred the disc battles. They were always to me the more fun parts of Tron. And Ares is no expectation. I really enjoyed the hand-to-hand combat. And the stuff where ships and drones were attacking was pretty cool too. Then we have the performances. Jared Leto did a really good job portraying Ares shift from machine to human was pretty good. And yes, Evan Peters can be a little cartoonish when it comes to Julian, but I found to be entertaining. Especially since there were times when Peters was much more subtle. But the biggest praise goes to Nine Inch Nails' score. I admit I was a little worried for them because Daft Punk did such a phenomenal job with Tron: Legacy. But NIN did a great job. While they're much more moodier than Daft Punk, Nine Inch Nails delivered a music with a hard synth beats and a great song played during a grid chase scene with I Know You Can Feel It. Yeah I know that song was released like two or three weeks before this came out, but I avoided listening to it so I'd be more surprised when I finally saw the movie. My point is, the music is the true MVP.

While I wasn't fully blown away by Tron: Ares, I also don't find it to be a massive disappointment. I just think by the end of the day it's an alright movie that with a few polishes probably could've been better.

My final rating is, Okay.

So there you have it, I'm all done for now. But due come back on Monday, Oct 13th, for my review of Final Destination 2. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.