'TRON: Ares' Is as Relentless as a Lightcycle at Full Speed

The TRON movies exist to frustrate. They're gorgeous, they've pushed the boundaries of VFX, they have incredible scores, they offer deep ideas regarding humanity as new gods in a world of digital creations, and they're also kind of bad. For all the TRON movies do well, they've never nailed down character or plot in a fulfilling way. Instead, for the past two movies, a guy with the last name of Flynn goes into a computer, has to do gladiator-style games, and stops some nefarious program from doing something bad in the real world. TRON: Ares isn't much deeper than the previous two installments, but at least it has a clear plot, a neat hook, and moves so fast you don't mind that the characters are so flat and basic they may as well be rendered in ASCII art.

TRON: Ares picks up 15 years or so after the events of TRON: Legacy. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) stepped down from the board of ENCOM, ceding control to the Kim sisters, Eve (Greta Lee) and her late sibling. Eve is in a race against Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the grandson of the first movie's villain, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), for the permanence code. Julian has found a way to bring creations from the digital world of The Grid into our world; they can only last for 29 minutes, hence the need for a code that will remove the time limit. When Eve discovers the code, Julian sends his forces, led by the digital soldier Ares (Jared Leto), to retrieve it, but Ares soon wants more than what his creator can offer and forges an alliance with Eve to withhold the code from his old master. A furious Julian then sends out more forces, led by another digital soldier, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith).

Although TRON: Ares wants the hook to be that the digital creations are now entering our world, the better storytelling device is the 29-minute limit. It puts a clock on any interaction when the digital soldiers are in the real world, and as we start to root for Ares, we know he's also racing to accomplish his mission before de-resolution and returning to the Dillinger grid. After a somewhat placid start (lots of exposition explaining the larger conflict, showing the "birth" of Ares, etc.), once Ares and Athena enter the real world on lightcycles to chase down Eve, Joachim Rønning's movie does not let up. It's a movie where all the characters are in non-stop pursuit, and that gives Ares a focus its predecessors lack. The first two films want to be Alice in Wonderland-like journeys, but there's too much gawking at the grid rather than anything in the way of character stakes or a compelling story. At least here, we understand the motivations of our central characters and the lengths they'll go to achieve them.

This being a TRON movie, it's still a style-first endeavor, and to his credit, Rønning takes advantage of an IMAX screen and a pulse-pounding Nine Inch Nails score to ratchet up the tension. It's a testament to the way visuals can draw us in when, if you pause to consider the situation for a moment, we're essentially watching two tech giants battle for the future of A.I., and the digital soldiers can't die if they're harmed in the real world. Watching the TRON style from the last movies, particularly Legacy, enter ours with a glowing-red sheen looks magnificent, and provides an underlying energy that the previous movies never achieved. TRON: Ares straps us to the back of a rocket, and we go along for the ride. It is theme park cinema that will undoubtedly sell theme park tickets.

At this speed, it's easy to forget the frustrations, and weirdly, the lack of depth allows the movie to keep up its pace. If Ares is going to chat with Eve about her grief over losing her sister, it's going to be while they're rushing to ENCOM headquarters so they can find the code. Julian is your standard tech-bro villain, but at least the film has the good sense to cast Gillian Anderson as his mother so she can slap him around a bit. It's all highly slick and superficial, but that's what TRON has always been. At least here, they've largely ditched any attempts at deeper ideas. If there is a theme about life, the universe, and everything, then Jeff Bridges is just going to tell it to you, man.

I went into TRON: Ares with rock-bottom expectations because I've seen the past two TRON movies, and sending lightcycles into the real world didn't seem like enough to make for an interesting story. But the marketing misses the aggressive pacing, seat-shaking sounds of NIN's score, and dazzling visuals that make Ares the best film in the trilogy. Although there are clearly ongoing franchise aspirations, the story largely stands on its own, and even Leto, who is not my favorite actor in the world, does a good job by doing less rather than, well, whatever this is. Ares finally makes a TRON movie as fun as its visuals, even if, yet again, there's little beneath the surface of its glimmering, digital façade.

TRON: Ares opens in theaters on October 10th. Matt Goldberg is a film critic who lives and works in Atlanta. If you enjoyed this review, check out his newsletter, Commentary Track.

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