Its Tronnin’ time. Were the words I’d use to describe this movie. A friend of mine and I went to see Tron: Ares, a sequel I had been waiting for since I was nine years old. Leaving the theater we both had the same comment, “When Jared Leto is the best part of the movie, you’ve got a problem.” This movie is a mess; from the poor script, to the subpar cheesy acting, and a setting that feels devoid of possibilities.

When I read online that a Tron sequel was in development all the way back in the early 2010’s I way beyond excited. While Tron: Legacy isn’t a great movie on it’s own it has remained a cult classic in my library and millions of others worldwide. Does it have the cheesy acting? Yeah. But is it unique? Absolutely. From the sound design crafted by Daft Punk to the insane visuals, Tron: Legacy checks off a lot of boxes for being a good movie. I just feel that the film was held back by audiences, who were coming off of the insane VFX of Pandora and the Navi in 2009’s Avatar. I could see why some audience members wouldn’t jump on board the Tron franchise after seeing the uncanny young Jeff Bridges. My personal opinion, if Tron: Legacy would’ve came out before Avatar, the franchise would’ve garnered more attention. All of this brings me back to the film Tron: Ares. How is it that after fifteen years, countless cancelations, rewrites, and a higher budget that this film didn’t get me interested. Why does it fail?

Right from the start of the film you are introduced to a variety of wacky characters; the cliche “Boy Genius” CEO billionaire with parental issues played by Evan Peters, the spunky girl-boss architype Eve Kim played by Greta Lee, the “antagonist” played by Jodie Turner-Smith, and the Jared Leto Ares played by Jared Leto. Everyone in this film feels that of an architype. Nothing more than the cliche that their character is based on when writing the script. We are told these character’s backstories, traumas, feelings but it doesn’t hold any weight. You can tell me you had a bad day and I’ll empathize, but show me you had a bad day by being vulnerable, I’ll probably start crying and give you a hug. Just because an action is written in a script doesn’t automatically mean it will translate to the finishing product. It’s up to the actor, the director, and the writers to truly bring it to life.

The only redeeming factor of this movie is sadly Jared Leto, which I mentioned earlier. This isn’t in terms of his acting, it’s more in the small cadences his character Ares has. When I see Ares pull up at a gas station in California driving an early 2000’s Honda Civic I was in a state of laughter and disbelief. The moment only got better when the character begins to praise the vehicle as if it was a chariot of the gods. These cadences pop up throughout the movie in a fashion similar to that of Olivia Wilde’s Quorra from Tron: Legacy, they’re quick and quippy. As mentioned before, when this is one of the best parts of the movie, you have a problem on your hands.

Tron: Ares biggest flaw is how it completely ignores everything that Tron: Legacy built. The film instead panders to the original Tron film in an annoying fashion with a large chunk of the runtime dedicated to the vaporwave aesthetic of 1980’s VFX and sound design. We get it. The eighties were great. But my gosh it was forty years ago move on. It seems that nowadays with these franchise sequels whether it be Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, or whatever other IP you can dream of; the stories go nowhere and don’t hold any stakes, the dialogue feels annoying with dump trucks worth of “REMEMBER THIS???” nostalgia. This isn’t how you make a sequel, instead of playing it safe flashing nostalgia every thirty seconds you instead try something new, introduce new characters, expand the world and lore, all while building on the characters that have already been developed. What? Try something new? But that’s impossible this day and age! I know dear reader, if only they would’ve tried something new with this movie, or any of the other IP’s mentioned, what could’ve been. While I am being quite harsh on the executives behind this movie and many others, I think it is still important that these movies be made, if anything it teaches the next generation of filmmakers what not to do when making a movie.

Overall this movie was a letdown, don’t really recommend unless you want to see what not to do narratively in a sequel. I still believe a good Tron sequel could be made given the scrapped ideas for this film, let’s just hope it doesn’t take another fifteen years to do so.

Tron: Ares - 2.5 / ★⯪☆☆☆

Tron: Ares

Alien: Earth