Tron: Ares

by Mike McGranaghan

Younger people can enjoy the Tron franchise, but it probably means the most to those of us who saw the original when it hit theaters back in 1982. Visually, the film was so mind-blowingly cool that it created a generation of obsessives. Tron: Legacy updated the concept in 2010, taking advantage of newer digital effects possibilities. Tron: Ares continues that tradition. This is the best-looking entry yet, and certainly the most coherently plotted.

ENCOM, the company run by Kevin Flynn, is now in the hands of Eve Kim (Greta Lee). They’re working on being able to take objects out of the digital grid and bring them into the real world. In direct competition with ENCOM is Dillinger Systems, run by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) and his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson). Both companies are seeking to be the first to acquire a “permanence code” that will allow their creations to exist for longer than twenty-nine minutes.

Julian has no intention of playing fair. He unleashes Ares (Jared Leto), a supremely powerful digital soldier, to hunt Eve down. Ares goes rogue, however, leading second-in-command Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) to clean up his mess. Kevin (played again by Jeff Bridges) factors in, too, because how could you do one of these pictures without him?

Tron: Ares is kind of goofy. Then again, all the Tron movies are a little goofy. That’s part of their appeal. One scene finds Ares and Eve falling into a body of water inside the Dillinger grid. Why would a digital world need water? (The answer: to allow for a super-rad glowing skimmer boat chase.) Not everything is inherently logical. You have to be willing to accept that people can move between the real and digital worlds, and certain concepts are present simply because they look awesome.

Director Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) stages the action scenes with style and energy, leaning heavily on the color red for this installment. Dillinger’s “light tanks” and upgraded light cycles emit the hue in menacing ways. The excitement of those sequences is elevated by an amazing musical score from Nine Inch Nails. On a visual and aural level, Tron: Ares provides viewers with a dazzling ride. Old school fans will also appreciate an entire section that brings back the look of the original.

The Tron franchise has always been about where technology might take us. If the individual entries are spaced far apart, it’s because enough evolution needs to take place so there’s something to explore. Ares is that most modern of breakthroughs - an AI program, one that learns and begins to act independently of its programmer. The film might not have anything profound to say on the subject, but it definitely uses the idea to build suspense. Indulging in that fantasy is part of what fuels the movie’s fun.

Seeing Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, even for just a few minutes, is a treat, and Jodie Turner-Smith gives a wonderfully creepy performance as Athena. As for Leto, his character doesn’t require a ton of acting, given that Ares is a bunch of zeroes and ones. He’s fine. The true draw is the fantasy experience, a count Tron: Ares delivers on nicely. On a huge screen with a booming sound system to blast that NIN score, the film offers marvelous entertainment.

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