TRON: ARES
Starring: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, and Jeff Bridges
Director: Joachim Rønning
QUENTIN
In its best moments, Tron: Ares is a ground-breaking music video for Nine Inch Nails that took me back to the early 2000s. There also is a Lebowski-esque Jeff Bridges contributing a glorified cameo in one wonderfully nostalgic sequence, which…far out. Sadly, those excellent moments are wrapped in an empty movie that unsuccessfully attempts to add to the AI conversation, all while drenched in so much red that it’ll screw up your rods and cones (anyone get that reference?). With lackluster performances, one-dimensional characters, and often chaotic visuals, perhaps only Nine Inch Nails fans need apply. They likely won’t be as disappointed as this Tron fan.
AMARÚ
Tron: Ares is an absolute visual spectacle. Combined with Nine Inch Nails’ electric score and soundtrack, the technical aspects are hypnotizing, almost to the point of overstimulation. The breakneck speed in which you have to process information matches the film’s nonstop pace, both to its success and detriment. While the film’s foundation is plagued with the base-level, nefarious evil vs good plot points and dialogue, the second half finds a surprisingly balanced message about humanity, effectively conveyed by Jodie Turner-Smith and, yes, Jared Leto. If Tron 4 can avoid the mustache-twirling, I ultimately wouldn’t mind returning to this world.
ADRIANO
Disney has been a red flag for me recently, and separately, an even bigger red flag has been having Jared Leto in the cast. So I'm not shocked I didn't like Tron: Ares. What shocked me is how dull it is for a Tron movie, as nothing about the oversimplified plot, underwritten characters, and, worst of all, ugly visuals gave me anything to be entertained by outside of the kick-ass Nine Inch Nails score. I can tell you right now that I am not interested in the sequel that was hamfistedly set up at the end.
ROBERT
Permanence, The Grid, Master Control…these are just words Tron: Ares uses to cobble together a script and world to push forward the action of the film. However, in reality, the purpose of a Tron film, especially at this point, is to saturate an audience’s brain with retro-futuristic visuals of a 1980s video game landscape and hard-hitting music tracks. In that capacity, Ares is successful. Everything else is not memorable. That said, Jared Leto, as the AI Ares, does his most credible acting as a program learning to be human since, in real life, he too is a robot pretending to be one of us.
BODE
I’d be lying if I said I went into Tron: Ares with high expectations. I’m not particularly fond of Jared Leto as a movie star, and given his previous Disney sequels, I didn’t think director Joachim Rønning was ideal to keep this franchise going. That’s why I’m shocked that I found it totally fine. The plot isn’t anything to write home about, and it doesn’t meaningfully add to the AI conversation. But the techno-futuristic visuals are still pretty stunning, and the Nine Inch Nails score goes expectedly hard. It works purely as an audiovisual experience. No more, no less.
