Despite the hold it seems to have on a section of cinema goers of a certain generation, I’ve never overtly been a Tron kind of guy. I can certainly appreciate what people like about them and the particular place it holds in cinematic lore in respect to the birth of computer generated imagery in film and the effect it’s had on the medium ever since (no Tron, no Pixar – period) and I’ve always had a special place for the way the films have looked and sounded, but the movies themselves has always left me a little cold.
It’s kind of fitting then that the newest entry into one of the most sporadic franchises around – Tron: Ares – has pretty much nailed that aesthetic perfectly as it follows in the digital footprints of both Tron and Tron: Legacy to tell something of a standalone story in the continuous rebooting of the computer world known as the Grid. With both glorious benefits and iffy drawbacks peppering the production equally, is the third movie a much-needed update, or does the franchise crash horribly?
Fifteen years after Sam Flynn attempted to bring his father, Kevin, back from the computerised world known as the Grid, we find that the corporate worlds of both ENCOM and Dillinger systems are looking pretty different as both companies are locked in a race to discover a way to bring digital constructs into the real world. With Sam Flynn missing, seemingly done with the world of big business, ENCOM is now run by former game creator, Eve Kim, who wants to finish her late sister’s pioneering work before the typically unscrupulous Julian Dillinger finds a way to crack it first. Obviously, being something of a brattish, corporate type, Julian’s plans equate almost entirely into military application and has already demonstrated what can be achieved as he gives form to various, slick-looking, digital vehicles and Ares, the humanoid form of the Master Control Program that runs his cyber security. The good news is that Ares is fast, strong and can whup ass like he’s getting paid by the butt, however the bad news is that so far, digital constructs can only last in the real world for twenty-nine minutes before collapsing into a pile of schmutz. So the race is on between Dillinger and Kim to see who can crack the “Permanence Code” first and this direct the course of human history.
Discovering the secret located inside one of Kevin Flynn’s old discs in a remote station in Alaska, it seems that Kim has got the future in the bag, but when Dillinger employs some typically underhanded tactics and utilises Ares in both the computer world and this one to get his hands on the code, he sets a string of events in motion that he couldn’t have possibly foreseen. You see, for all his fighting capabilities, it turns out that Ares has something of a desire to learn and understand the human condition and subsequently develops such “malfunctions” as empathy. But while he finds himself tempted to ignore his creators commands, Ares second in command, Athena, is only to happy to step up to the plate.
If we were judging Tron: Ares purely on its looks and sounds, then there’s a good chance that this latest (if uneeded) entry into the Tronverse could be one of the strongest of the trilogy. The bare minimum that I’ve ever taken away from any of these movies is that I demand achingly cool vehicles, stunning visuals of computerised landscapes and a soundtrack that violently goes against the norm and if Ares was nothing more than a box ticking exercise, then the makers have filled their brief with aplomb. You literally can’t turn without seeing lithe combatants clad in black, skin tight armour with that cool neon trim and in addition to the standard updated light cycles, flying craft and the towering Recognizer ships, we also get Frid versions of speedboats and armoured assault vehicles too. Watching the threequel replay all the hits as they interact with the real world delivers a genuine thrill to anyone who appreciates machinery that looks overwhelmingly cool as fuck, especially when they do stuff like leaving devestating light trails that shear police cars in half and seperate jet fighters from their wings. Similarly, the world of the Grid still looks utterly beguiling as the stunning visuals draw you in like a fly caught up in the siren hum of a bug zapper – however, Tron: Ares’ greatest asset proves to lay not with its sights, but with its sounds.
A major part of Tron: Ares’ advertising has been taken up with the fact that Nine Inch Nails has done the score for the film and it doesn’t take long until you realise how much of an impact the legendary band has on proceedings. Turning what is basically a by-the-numbers rise of the machines story into a mind melting, ribcage rattling experience that has to be heard on the most agressive sound system you can find, Trent Reznor and Co. ruthlessly pump aggressibe life into the most standard of scenes. Catching it on an IMAX screen may have meant that my internal organs may have been shaken up like one of James Bond’s vodka martinis, but as a techo soundscape that somehow manages to beat Hans Zimmer at his own game (it tends to drown out a fair bit of dialogue, too – but I doubt I missed anything), it’s an absolutely remarkable experience that manages to not only compliment the dazzling imagery, but be something of a transformative experience on its own.
It’s somewhat of a shame, then, that the rest of Tron: Ares isn’t a innovative as what’s beating out of the speakers, as director Joachim (Pirates Of The Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) Rønning delivers something of a standard bad-AI-turns-good flick that offers nothing that movies such as Terminator 2, I, Robot and Short Circuit haven’t covered already. There’s some nice touches, sure; Jared Leto’s eponymous programme is constantly distracted by the real-world wonders of such things as rain and Depeche Mode, Greta Lee’s CEO proves to be a refreshing switch up, and there’s a nice, spikey, relationship going on between Evan Peters’ villainous Dillinger and Gillian Anderson’s frosty matriarch, bit in the grand scheme of things, they only feel like pixels of a larger picture. Even the third act use of some frusious call backs to the original film that include an obligatory cameo of Jeff Bridges having a twinkle in his eye as he speaks absolute twaddle can’t quite shift the plot out of its default, get-the-mcguffin mode. There’s also the slightly problematic issue of Leto himself that, due to personal issues outside of the film, can’t hope to be smothered by a nicely judged, underplayed performance that crackles with irony.
Faithfully delivering all the touch points you’d expect from a Tron movie, Ares regrettably doesn’t manage to set itself any loftier goals other that remarking just how fucking cool a light cycle looks as it travels through real-workd traffic. Still, an absolute five-star banger of a score manages to constantly gives the plot the upgrade it so desperately needs. Come for the visuals, stay for the score – but expect everything else to be deleted twenty minutes after you’ve watched it.
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