(Louis Volker / Fourth Estate)
Even nostalgia can’t diminish my hatred for this movie
BY LOUIS VOLKER, STAFF WRITER
EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers for “Tron: Ares.”
When the first trailer for “Tron: Ares” arrived, I was hesitant at the idea of Jared Leto as the new lead of a beloved franchise.
Diehard fans of the 1982 movie “Tron” and its 2010 sequel “Tron: Legacy” were skeptical of the actor, whose recent string of failed films (“Morbius,” “Suicide Squad” and “Haunted Mansion”) and allegations of predatory behavior toward underaged girls have raised concerns about his character, acting skills and appeal to audiences.
It is with great sadness that I report Leto’s performance is not the worst part of “Tron: Ares.” It’s not even the worst performance of the movie.
Though I didn’t have high expectations when entering the theater, I was genuinely surprised at how much I disliked this movie.
As the third “Tron” installment in five decades, “Tron: Ares” is more of a reboot than a sequel, presenting an original story that only marginally involves characters from past movies. The titular character Ares (Leto) is an AI soldier who goes on a quest for independent existence after being printed off of the Grid into the real world.
The Grid is a series of online realities that imagine computer programs as sentient beings. The movie’s villain, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) wants to sell Ares as an expendable and reprintable soldier as part of a digital arms race.
If my description of the plot of “Ares” makes it seem flimsy, that’s because it is. Despite being a high-concept sci-fi flick, the movie doesn’t do anything surprising, interesting or even controversial other than a vague rhetorical argument that basically says ‘what if AI is a good idea?’
It’s not just a bad movie; it’s boring. I don’t think I can even really spoil it in this review because its trailers reveal everything that this movie has to offer.
There’s hardly any originality in it at all, and whatever original ideas do result from “Ares” often act in direct contradiction to preestablished canon that confuses the viewer rather than interests them.
Ares’ evolution into an autonomous being rather than a mindless program is supposed to be profound, but it completely falls flat when considering that the plot was already established in the trailer and a very similar plot already happened in the first “Tron” movie.
Standing on a weak foundation, everything on the surface of “Tron: Ares” falls flat as well. Despite featuring an all-star cast, including Emmy-winner Gillian Anderson, Greta Lee and Jeff Bridges, every performance and line delivery feels disconnected and uninterested.
The actors fail to convince audiences that the stakes of the movie are real. Peters’ performance in particular stands out in a bad way. Scenes of him in “Ares” feel more like a YouTube meme reaction video compilation rather than a performance with a constructed narrative. His line deliveries feel intercut and random, like they could be moved to any other part of the movie and not change its narrative at all.
When I critique the actors’ line deliveries, it’s important to clarify: I’m referring to the lines that I could understand. The largest disappointment of “Tron: Ares” comes from its musical score, which often blares so loud that I couldn’t even tell what characters are saying.
I was excited when the band Nine Inch Nails were announced as the composers for the movie’s musical score. This is as a big fan of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s Oscar-winning work for films like “The Social Network” and Daft Punk’s famous score for “Tron: Legacy.”
Reznor and Ross certainly had large footsteps to fill when composing the music for “Ares,” and it seems like the duo and Disney failed by trying to live up to past expectations instead of finding an original sound.
While there are some good songs, the music is emphasized way too much, resulting in a $200,000,000 music video that left my ears ringing. While the music is catchy, it doesn’t show Ross and Reznor’s full potential as composers and instead sounds like a louder remix album of their previous work.
I think its blatant attempts at iconicism is what makes “Ares” so disappointing. It’s not that director Joachim Rønning misunderstood the appeal of the “Tron” franchise, with its slick aesthetics and campy concepts; rather, that he tried too hard to recreate that same appeal instead of pushing the series to evolve.
Without its flashy Akira-slides, famous light-up motorcycles and sets that reference the previous installments, “Ares” does absolutely nothing original. Even chase sequences can’t exist without relying on nostalgia to make moments impactful. This is more frustrating to me than if Ares had at least attempted something of substance and fallen short.
In a way “Ares” is a lot like the AI it tries to support. It takes a lot of surface level references from other popular media and tries to recycle it into something with substance, but that just creates a thin veneer of aesthetic and flashiness that fails to cover up for the fact that it’s not really a movie on its own.
It’s lazy, self obsessed and only interested in pleasing fans for the sake of turning a profit. I do not think that its aesthetics will help it last in a lingering legacy the way that its predecessors have, and I am angry that it even exists at all.
“Tron: Ares” is not just a bad movie. It is barely a movie. While it does look good half the time, the most exciting bits about it are the parts that reference other, better media, and this is never a good sign. It earns one star out of five, and that’s only because the Ducati Sport1000 that appears in the film is the raddest bike ever. I am full of hatred.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Fourth Estate welcomes opinion articles by people of all beliefs. If you feel strongly about a subject and want your voice to be heard, please email Opinion Editor Emma G. Schaible at eschaib@gmu.edu.
