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Tron Ares feels like one of those movies where you walk out of the theater and your first thought is damn what a waste although I didnt watch on theater, the visuals are gorgeous no question about that, Nine Inch Nails absolutely killed the soundtrack, the music is probably the best thing this movie has, everything else just falls so flat its almost frustrating to watch, I would not call it worst movie of the year but for sure the one with the most opportunity to shine and wasted. I really wanted to love this thing because Tron Legacy is a movie I still watch every now and then, probably its nostalgia and makes me bias. Not my favorite franchise but still one I like, although Ares just does not feel connected to Legacy at all, like where the hell did all those ISOs go that were supposed to change the world, why are we stuck with a bunch of boring corporate suits instead of characters we actually give a damn about, the whole setup feels wrong from the start. The biggest issue here is that this feels more like a Terminator knockoff than an actual Tron sequel with them trying to create the perfect soldier, private soldier, you got programs escaping into the real world and causing chaos witch is cool, gives you some Matrix vibes kinda Mr Smith but the execution is so rushed and underbaked that none of it lands the way it should, you can feel the movie trying to do too much without taking time to make any of it work properly. Jared Leto as Ares is probably the best character performance from the movie considering the dude is kinda out of luck with every movie he is in, but this time he brings this weird almost deadpan inside humor that actually works, his whole character arc about developing a conscience and becoming more human has some interesting moments but even that feels like its on fast forward, they rush through his emotional growth so quick that it never really hits. Greta Lee plays Eve Kim and I cannot tell you one thing about her character because we never get to spend much time with most of the characters, she just dissapears into the background even though shes supposed to be one of the main people driving the story forward, thats a huge problem when your lead character has zero personality or development, you can tell this role was written for someone else because nothing about her makes sense. The movie throws way too many characters at you that nobody cares about, I know I might sound a bit rough or salty against the movie but I was expecting so much more considering the audience on RTT gave it an 84% but idk if this was a bunch of Teenagers that probably like the movie or first time viewers because the movie as a fantasy and action thriller is kinda good.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18177528/
- Platform: Disney+
Rottentomatoes Rating
Source
What really pisses me off is that there are some interesting ideas buried in this mess about weaponizing technology, corporate greed taking over everything, the whole concept of AI wanting freedom from their creators, the movie never actually digs into any of it, it just scratches the surface and then runs off to the next flashy action scene before anything meaningful can happen. They got this whole setup with Evan Peters playing the Dillinger kid, he iss supposed to be this big bad villain but hes just another generic tech bro who wants to make weapons and sell them to the military, theres nothing new or fresh about his character. The permanence code thing that everyones chasing is such a boring gimic too, the entire plot develops around finding this code that lets programs exist in the real world for more than 29 minutes, the movie never explains why that matters beyond just oh well then the bad guys can make permanent soldiers, its such a shallow reason to drive your entire plot forward. They had 15 years to work on this script, this is the best they could come up with, a logistical problem instead of an actual interesting philisophical dilemma about AI and humanity and creation, the 29 minute time limit could have been used for so much tension and drama but they barely do anything with it. Characters are supposed to be on a timer but it never feels urgent, half the time I forgot it was even a thing because the movie does not bother reminding you or making it matter, programs are dropping dead from their timer running out but then they just come back again like nothing happened so wheres the stakes in any of this.
The action scenes are very meh as hell too witch is wild considering how good the action was in Tron Legacy, Joseph Kasinski knew how to shoot this stuff and make it feel sleek and exciting, this director just does not have that same touch, everything feels kind of thrown together without much thought about how it should flow. The light cycle chase through the city streets looks cool but once you start thinking about it none of it makes any sense, theres no way those bikes are moving at those speeds through busy traffic even at night, the whole sequence feels like it was designed to look good in a trailer rather than work as an actual scene in the movie that has weight or consequences. The pacing is all over the place too, some people are saying this movie moves faster than the other Tron films, maybe thats true but faster does not mean better when you are rushing through character moments, skipping over all the stuff that would make me care about whats happening, leaving no room for the world to breathe or for us to connect with anyone on screen. Tron and Tron Legacy took their time letting you soak into what matters, feel the weight of this digital world, they understood that spectacle needs space to breathe, those quiet moments between characters are what make the big action actually have that emotional impact. Ares does not have any of that patience, its constantly cutting back and forth between the real world and the grid, throwing exposition at you non stop until your brain just shuts off, you stop trying to follow along because the movie is not giving you any reason to care about the details its dumping on you.
The whole thing with Jeff Bridges showing up as Flynn is pure nostalgia bait, it does not even make sense within the story, Ares asks him why hes there and Flynn says something like Im here because your here, I was just like what the fuck does that even mean, its the kind of line that sounds deep but means absolutely nothing when you think about it. They needed an excuse to put Jeff Bridges in the movie so they wrote this scene where Ares goes back to the original 1982 Tron world and meets Flynn, it serves no purpose other than to remind you that hey remember when Tron used to be good, remember when you cared about these characters and this world, well we dont have any of that anymore so heres some memberberries instead. The movie is so desperate to appeal to people who loved the original film that it completely ignores the fact that Tron Legacy is the reason a new generation of people even care about this franchise in the first place, Legacy created a whole new fanbase, this movie just takes a dump on all of that by pretending it never happend, Sam Flynn gets dismissed in like a 30 second news montage where they say he left Encom for personal reasons witch is insane. At the end of Legacy he literally says hes taking the company back, hes got Quora with him who is the last ISO and could change humanity forever, Alan Bradley is not in this movie at all even though Bruce Boxleitner has been in every Tron thing up until now including those Blu Ray special features, its like they went out of their way to erase everything that made Legacy important so they could do their own thing and start fresh without any of the baggage.
The music on the movie is great although it also looks like Nine Inch Nails use the movie and not the other way, it feels disconnected like your watching a music video instead of a movie where the sound and picture are working together, after a while the constant wall of sound just becomes background noise. The End of Line scene in Legacy works because the music builds and builds until it explodes at the perfect moment, in Ares the music is just constantly blasting at full volume, after a while it stops having any impact because theres no contrast or dynamics to make certain moments stand out from the rest of the film. Honestly the music was probably way more interesting than the movie itself or the scenes it was used on, thats a sign that something went wrong in the creative process somewhere along the way. Tron Legacy is one of my favorite movies despite what other people might say bout it, yeah I know rating and reviews doesnt rank as high but I have been waiting for a sequel since 2010 so I really wanted this sequel to work out but it seems that the Ai topic slap with perfect soldier type of theme got the best out of this movie and turn it into the mess it is, I was hyped when they announced a new Tron movie even when they said it would not be a direct sequel to Legacy, I thought maybe it could work as its own thing and bring something new to the table, but this aint it, this is a shallow corporate product that exists because Disney thinks Tron should be a franchise, not because anyone had a real creative vision for what this story should be, it feels like it was written and stitched together from 15 years worth of different drafts that never quite came together into something coherent. Tron Legacy is better by a mile, this sequel just makes you appreciate how good that one was, all the style and none of the substance, I am giving this a 6.5 out of 10 and thats being generous by far but mostly because of the soundtrack and the visuals are doing all the heavy lifting while everything else is a miss.
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