Disney released the original Tron in the summer of 1982. It was inarguably the greatest year for science fiction and fantasy in the history of cinema. In the month of June alone, audiences could see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Blade Runner, and The Thing in theaters, all of which are now considered stone-cold classics. And that’s just one month! There was also Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake; Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making turn in Conan the Barbarian; legendary animator Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH; the camp classic Beastmaster (we used to say HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On”); the Michael Myers-less, techno-paranoia story Halloween III: Season of the Witch; the George Romero/Stephen King collaboration Creepshow; and the Jim Henson/Frank Oz masterpiece The Dark Crystal.
Tron was profitable for Disney, which, at the time, was not the powerhouse they are today, but a rudderless studio struggling with their legacy. Yet in that miracle year, it was not enough to crack the top 10. It was significant for two reasons. It was one of the first films to make extensive use of what we now call CGI — computer-generated imagery. Second, it came out during the height of the first big computer game craze. Pac-Man ruled the arcades, and Atari consoles were flying off the shelves. For those early joystick jockeys, imagining what it would be like to be trapped in a neon maze, Tron’s pitch was irresistible. Famed game developer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is trying to defend the tech startup ENCOM from his rival Dillinger (David Warner) when he is digitized by an experimental particle laser and uploaded into The Grid, where he is forced to play the games he developed for life-or-death stakes.
The thing was, Tron was almost instantly obsolete. The same month Tron hit theaters, William Gibson published his first short story, “Burning Chrome,” where he coined the term “cyberspace,” and the first computer game craze came crashing down that Christmas with the release of the Atari E.T. game.
Despite the fact that Tron’s world of heroic coders fighting for net neutrality would become a familiar narrative in the real world, the film didn’t spawn a franchise for another three decades. 2010’s Tron: Legacy was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who until that point was only famous for the “Mad World” Gears of War commercial, which led to low-energy covers of ’80s pop hits becoming ubiquitous in advertising. The return to The Grid carried the same narrative heft as the original — which is to say, very little heft. (Ironically, Kosinski wasn’t even the best director on the Tron: Legacy set. That would be actress Olivia Wilde, whose directorial debut Booksmart was the best pure comedy of the decade.)
What both Tron and Tron: Legacy did have was great music. Tron featured a score by transgender electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos which would resonate through arcades for decades. The best part of Tron: Legacy was the incredible soundtrack by Daft Punk. The best way to experience the film was to lay back, stop trying to understand what was happening, and let the combination of music and images wash over you.
Like its predecessor, Tron: Legacy was a modest success. Kosinski’s team started prepping a third film, to be known as TR3N, before he and Disney lost interest. (Kosinski would go on to direct the megahit ’80s reboot Top Gun: Maverick for Paramount.) So it’s somewhat baffling that now, 15 years later, we get Tron: Ares.
Directed by Norwegian Joachim Rønning, Tron: Ares carries on the franchise tradition of aggressively mediocre filmmaking and kick-ass music. As the opening montage relates, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), star of Legacy, is no longer in the picture, for reasons no one could be bothered to write, and ENCOM is run by CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee). She is currently in a race with rival Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) to perfect technology which allows cyberspace objects to exist in the real world. This form of hyper 3D printing can either be used to create good things, such as the orange tree Eve prints in the frigid wastes of Alaska, or bad things, such as Ares, the fully disposable super soldier played by Jared Leto.
The biggest problem with particle laser technology is that its creations only last about 30 minutes in meatspace before transitioning back to The Grid. But Eve believes that Kevin Flynn solved that problem back in the ’80s, with an algorithm called The Permanence Code. She sets out to recover the lost data, while Dillinger watches over her shoulder, ready to steal it. When he sends Ares to kidnap Eve, the program goes rogue and wants to keep it for itself. “Pinocchio,” Dillinger sneers, “wants to be a real boy.”
As best I could gather, that’s the plot of Tron: Ares. Programs bring Grid concepts to the real world. There’s a lightcycle chase through the streets of San Francisco (Eve, conveniently, is a motorcycle enthusiast who commutes on a dirt bike). The goofy, Space Invader-like Rectifiers float menacingly above the city skyline, but don’t amount to much. The famous deadly glow frisbees now come in inconvenient, triangular shapes. Subplots are set up, only to be abandoned without resolution. Jared Leto answers the question, “What if there was a movie star with zero charisma?”
In true Tron-dition, the soundtrack is the best part of Tron: Ares. This time around, it’s Nine Inch Nails, and it’s spectacular. I’ve listened to it three times while writing this review. Coming off last year’s Challengers triumph, it proves Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are the best in the film music business right now. Tron: Ares isn’t as visually arresting as its two predecessors, but there’s still plenty of Industrial Light & Magic eye candy to zone out to while the absolutely impeccable sound design blasts through the Dolby Atmos sound system. It’s too bad the rest of the movie doesn’t have the bandwidth to match.
Tron: Ares
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