Rebooting...: A "TRON: Ares" Review

Every time I go to my local arcade "Starfighters", I always wind up spending 5-10 minutes on the "TRON: Legacy" pinball machine. It was one of the last films I can recall where it left me fantasizing vividly about being in the world it depicted: Lightcycles leaving deadly trails of hard light, handlebars that could turn into flying vehicles if you pull it apart, identity disks tailor-made to each individual, and just the grid as a whole was enough to leave me entranced for hours. All of that and the pinball machine also had multiball capability which was always a plus for me in pinball.

But all of that is just to express how unique this series felt to me and it only grew from there. My brother got "TRON: Evolution" for the PS3 not too long after the movie so I had played a bit of that. During my computer science degree, I had stolen my parent's Disney Plus login and watched the original "TRON", smirking at all of the references to computer hardware and code. Unfortunately I never watched "TRON: Uprising" as we didn't have cable but from what I saw, it seemed to hold true to the vibes of the TRON series.

Then comes in "TRON: Ares"... and its different. To clarify, as much as I loved the vibes of Legacy, it is definitely not a great movie. It's fun, its got aura, its got soul, but there are a lot of problems with it. Ares is in a similar state.

I had fun watching Ares. The visuals were beautiful and the soundtrack was superb. Nine Inch Nails had big shoes to fill following Daft Punk but they delivered. The combat scenes were all well choreographed and you can tell they embraced the unique aspects of grid-based technology and used those quirks to cook up very charming and clever use cases for the weapons and vehicles. As an example, there is a scene in the movie, that's also in the trailer, where a grid-based flying vehicle traps a fighter jet's wings between it's trails and then hard pivots up to sever the jet wings. That is such a fun way to show the power of the hard light that isn't just "don't touch the colors". In fact, they even show that it's ok to touch the light and you won't just simply derezz and because of that, there are other choreographies where they use the hard light in combat to pivot position or set up attacks. Its moments like that that I really appreciated the most because it's there where you can tell they had fun scripting out those scenes.

Unfortunately, that's about all of the real praise I can give it, maybe minus the callbacks to the first movie (looking at you, Flynn's grid). Most of everything else is just a missed opportunity at best.

Starting with the plot, it's an interesting idea: what if you bring the programs into the real world and they experience what it is like to be human? Great premise! Plenty of ways to discuss meaningfully about life and free will and many other philosophical goodies that you can package in artistic ways..... or you can straight up tell the audience what is happening and exactly what to think.

I am not joking when I say you know EXACTLY what each character is thinking at any given time. The characters make sure that every single thought or feeling that comes into their mind is expressed and its even more obvious when what they have to say is about the plot. You will not be lost in what is going on because sooner or later one character will explain why what you just saw is relevant to the story.

But then there is also just the silliness of the story, which really requires you to suspend your disbelief for the whole runtime. I promise if you can manage to keep it suspended, you'll have a great time, but the second you drop it, you can't help but laugh.

There is one scene in particular and it is when Athena, Ares' second-in-command, chases down Eve, our main human character, to an empty parking garage. While attempting to hide, Eve realizes that these beings are quite literally gods of knowledge as they are literally sentient computers. So what does she do to take down this hyper-intelligent super-being? Rams her motorcycle into her, knocking Athena off of her lightbike, and forcing her to fall 5 stories. And while you might think I am nitpicking, its gets worse (hilarious!). Athena still in pursuit of Eve needs to reach her as soon as possible, so she proceeds to do the most robotic run up the spiral road to get back to the fifth floor and capture Eve. They pan to her multiple times with menacing music and she is doing the goofiest sprint I have ever seen. I audibly laughed in the theater.

I don't want to spoil much else but generally the rest of the movie feels like a fever dream with the occasional bounce back between the grid and the real world. The plot progresses in a natural way with various "conveniences" thrown in to keep the goal of the protagonists achievable but somehow in some twisted way, it feels like it makes sense.

I did like the performances from pretty much everyone in the cast, with Evan Peters as a stand out personally. Its just unfortunate that they all had to deal with the script they were dealt. Ironically enough, the person that I thought felt the weakest was Jeff Bridges as Flynn. It felt like he was more "The Dude" and less Kevin Flynn. His line delivery is very lax and playful, his lines themselves are surface-level thoughts, and his role is short-lived and isolated from the rest of the world. It unfortunately leads to his inclusion feeling more like fan service when the roll he plays in the movie could EASILY follow the character of Flynn.

It feels like "TRON: Ares" is more of a series reboot than a true sequel film. It references the older material and definitely tries to convince you that its the same universe but its only including them for namesake and reputation. Hell, and I guess this is also a spoiler, there is no Tron in the film. Not even a reference, or at least none that I saw. This to me CLEARLY states that Disney might be trying to reframe what the TRON series can be. Maybe they felt the rules were too stiff or the world had nothing left to logically expand on but it feels like they were bankrupt on ideas and decided to take the one interesting idea they had and give it whatever plot holes it needs for it to stand. To some degree, I respect it.

Overall, if you can suspend your disbelief for a majority of the movie, its genuinely really fun to watch and listen to. I think there is a world where this "reboot" of TRON can catch wind and eventually lead to another sequel or spinoff or something because its clear that at the very least, the audience loves the visual style and sound design. But until then, I will still find it in me to recommend this movie to others and I am interested to see how it sits in the minds of fans and pop culture going forward.