Every now and then, a bad blockbuster comes out that is not just crap in and of itself, but feels like it somehow was meant to release in the noughties and got lost and found its way into the 2020s – the main culprits of these recently being the Sony Spider-Man spinoff universe. Tron Ares manages to be a trendsetter in a way by instead feeling even more dated, a bad hacker movie from the ‘90s with a glossy coat of 2025 paint that is, without a doubt, the worst film I’ve seen this year. Both irritating and boring, it is a movie that, truly, no one asked for.
Ditching most of the plot threads from 2010’s Tron Legacy, Ares inverts the franchise by having the real world visited by the programs from the computer, instead of the other way around. It’s immediately and obviously a terrible choice from new director Joachim Ronning and writer Jesse Wigutow, removing the core, basic strength of the Tron franchise, just like the third Ant-Man actively abandoned its own aesthetic appeal by moving from recognisable objects getting big and small into a world of CG gloop. These stories have never been particularly engaging on their own merits, they were made into *something* by having humans run around a retro-futuristic computer world – now we’ve just got people in shiny armour jogging around a normal city.
The main shiny armour jogger is Ares (Jared Leto), a combat program designed by evil AI-focused corporation Dillinger Systems and its petulant CEO Julian (Evan Peters), who has found a way to make digital objects into real, tangible creations in our world. However, these objects can only stay stable for 29 minutes before disintegrating, so Julian sends Ares to capture the CEO of good AI-focused corporation Encom, Eve Kim (Greta Lee), who has discovered the ‘Permanence Code’ (get ready to hear that phrase one million times) that will allow digital beings to live in physical forms indefinitely.
It is an impossible plot to care about, all stupid jargon and plans that make no sense populated by one of the least likeable ensembles of characters ever assembled. Everyone talks like the most annoying side character from one of the ‘90s Bond movies – I’d say the whole script sounds AI-written, but the sycophantic programming of those chatbots would actually probably prevent it from spitting out something this purely irritating. Of course, Ares eventually turns good once he learns what it means to be human within the less than half an hour he’s allowed be alive, and then he fights some baddies and oh god who cares.
The original soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails has been one of the most hyped up elements of Ares’s marketing, and it is pretty good, but never in a film-elevating way – you could absolutely just listen to the tracks on YouTube and you’d have a much better time. Everyone in this film looks bored, anyone who watches this film will be bored, and its crummy box office returns means it looks like this is the end of the road for both Tron as a franchise and Jared Leto as a leading man. Good riddance.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 