Film Review: Tron: Ares

Welcome back to the blog readers. I may have been alive when Tron: Legacy (2010) came out, but that was a film that was well before my time as a film lover (or a cinephile). I never really even had any interest in watching that film or the first film in this franchise: Tron (1982). You know I love me a good science fiction film, so I kind of got excited to see this upon the release of the trailers earlier in the year. So, would my hype in this film be rewarded with a good time, or would the best part about this film be the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack? Stick around to find out.

Tron: Ares was directed by Joachim Rønning from a screenplay by Jesse Wigutow and a story by Wigutow and David DiGilio, based on characters by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Cameron Monaghan, and Jeff Bridges. In the film, a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence program named Ares finds itself in a fight between two warring companies over a code to make AI more permanent and learns that it may not want to participate in that fight.

I mentioned in my introductory paragraph that I love me a good science fiction film, and I think my love for them began when I watched the Star Wars Original Trilogy (1977-83) for the very first time, and all three are in my favorite films of all time. Since then, I have seen the good and the bad, and the Jupiter Ascendings (2015) of the world (fun fact, Jupiter Ascending is the only film I have ever fallen asleep in). Was I expecting to see Shakespeare in this film? No, but I was hoping for a fun time, and I think I got that...? While the performance of Jared Leto was solid and the score was predictably fantastic, not much else really popped out at me.

I want to start by talking about Jared Leto. I do not care how many of you decide to come for me when I say this, but I think Jared Leto is a good actor. Morbius (2022) was not his fault, but he is an Academy Award winning actor in case you guys forgot that. And apparently, he was one of the driving forces that got this film made. The rest of the film notwithstanding, I think Leto gave his all in his role as the artificial intelligence program Ares. Sure, it may be a bit one-dimensional, but Leto brings the personality I know he has (as a fan of his for well over 12 years) to a role that I think only he could play. There may not be much in the way of emotion, but Leto's extreme method acting pays off for the weaknesses in his prowess.

Time to get real for a second. For about 95% of the people who ventured out to see this film, the thing we were all most looking forward to was the score from Nine Inch Nails. I mean, I purposefully avoided listening to it so I could hear it booming on the big screen. For the boys who have been doing this music thing for longer than I have been alive, this may have been the most anticipated musical score of the year (or at least since Daft Punk's score for Tron: Legacy). And I just think this may be the greatest score to a film I have ever heard. I will go as far as to say that if this score is not nominated at the Oscars, I will personally sue the Academy. I won't, but you get what I am trying to say.

I want to take this time and go into this score in depth. Nine Inch Nails is classified as an industrial rock band that goes all the way back to 1988. They have been entertaining people in five different decades, and continue to be relevant to this day. I learned they would be doing this score back in 2024, but I never expected them to go in a more electronic direction. Every song on the score has a sting to it, an uncomfortablity to it, a rawness to it, a passion to it, and leaves a reverb in your heart. At least it did for me. I had previously listened to the lead single and end credits song "As Alive as You Need Me to Be" when it was released, but the other end credits song, titled "Who Wants to Live Forever?" and features Spanish singer Judeline, is absolutely haunting and dread-inducing. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have crafted a soundtrack that will stay with you well after the credits roll, and absolutely (in an echo of the previous paragraph) should be nominated for Best Original Score. Get the boys another Oscar!

I do also want to lay some praise down towards the visual effects of this film. Obviously, visual effects have continued to evolve over the course of the last 15 years (between the releases of Legacy and Ares), so I was curious to see what we would get in terms of the effects. And I do have to say that the visual effects are absolutely stunning. Especially the effects when we are in the "Grid" and we can see a whole techno world? I have never seen effects done so well for a science fiction film. I just wish the story was handled better, but that is an argument for another paragraph. Luckily you don't have to wait all too much, because that paragraph is coming up.

Unfortunately, that is where the positives with this film end. Like I alluded to in the previous paragraph, I did not think the story of this film was all that great. I had heard that in other installments of this admittedly-dying franchise that they were able to ask the question of artificial intelligence and advances in technology in their time, but I really did not get much of a sense of that in this film. I would have really appreciated a premise in which artificial intelligence had taken over and the impact on that, but we got a bare-bones, middle-of-the-road story where not really much happens. It also takes on the age-old trope that the perfect killing machine gains sentience and breaks away from its programming. Yawn. I have seen that shit before.

In conclusion, Tron: Ares has a solid Jared Leto performance, stunning visuals, and an all-time score from Nine Inch Nails, but it cannot be saved from a mediocre story. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.