[Nerdspresso] Help! AI Pinocchio's Stuck in a NIN Video!

If all you want from a movie is savage tunes and blinking lights, then Tron: Ares is super lit. Using the previous Tron movies as a jumping-off point, this one unspools a slender narrative about dueling tech hipsters and rebel AI choreographed to the ominous syncopations of Nine Inch Nails. It’s a feast for the eyes and a festival for the ears, but your brain is left wanting.

In the original Tron, rogue computer programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges from Starman and The Big Lebowski) gets zapped into the digital world. He has to fight his way out, aided by a pixelated warrior named Tron. In 1982, writer and director Steven Lisberger conceived of tiny kingdoms feuding inside our motherboards and arcade cabinets. His actors wore neon unitards while racing light cycles and dueling with glowing frisbees. 

Lisberger broke new ground using computer-generated imagery to advance storytelling. Video games had just arrived on the scene and the Mouse House was hoping this new craze (combined with the residual high from that galaxy far, far away) would lead to untold riches. They even rolled out Tron video games in arcades around the country to coincide with the premiere. 

This flick was Disney’s second attempt to ride the sci-fi wave inspired by Star Wars. They’d crashed and burned with The Black Hole in 1979, but had high hopes for Tron. They weren’t alone. By the early ‘80s, every studio was chasing Jedi cash. You couldn’t check the newspaper listings (yes, there were printed movie times like hard copy Google results) without finding at least one sci-fi flick. 

Tron was a casualty of the memorable summer that also gave us Star Trek II, Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, E.T., and The Thing. It came and went, and Disney pulled the plug on Lisberger’s dream. Tron was relegated to pay cable and then VHS. Fans thought they’d never return to “the grid.” Then, in 2010, director Joseph Kosinski (who went on to become the poster boy for adrenaline junkies thanks to Top Gun: Maverick and F1) rebooted the concept with Tron: Legacy. 

He built on the lore of the first flick with Flynn leveraging his victory in the digital world to become the CEO of ENCOM, the tech company that employed him. The sequel picked up years later after Flynn has disappeared, presumably living his life in the cyber world. His now adult son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund from Tulsa King on Paramount+), has grown up without his dad and is haunted by his absence. 

Sam is drawn back to Flynn’s Arcade, a location from the first film, where he discovers the device that transported his dad to Tron’s domain. Sam follows the clues and finds himself in a much different digital realm than the original movie. Kosinski expanded Lisberger’s vision using a much larger palette of creative tools than what was available in 1982. 

An epic cyber nerd fantasy with a rousing score by the electronic music duo Daft Punk, Tron: Legacy presented a scenario that would have been unimaginable for the first movie. Sam traverses the dystopian landscape of the Grid, searching for his father. During his journey, he becomes a crusader in the battle to free its denizens from tyrannical rule. 

This flick is much more ambitious than its predecessor and introduces the idea that life on the Grid can exist in the outside world. Tron: Ares is a loose sequel to this film, picking up after Sam’s return to Earth and following his tenure as ENCOM’s CEO. An opening prologue reveals that Sam has passed the torch to the Kim sisters, Tess and Eve. They are locked in a bitter corporate rivalry with competing tech giant Dillinger Systems. 

Following Tess’s untimely death, Eve (Greta Lee from Russian Doll on Netflix) has gone on a quest to recover Tess’s secret research on Flynn’s work. He had apparently created “the Permanence Code,” which could literally bring digital programs to life. Dillinger Systems is also hunting for this MacGuffin to help them nab juicy military contracts. 

CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters from X-Men: Days of Future Past) has figured out how to bring characters from the Grid to the real world. Without the Permanence Code, however, nothing exists longer than 29 minutes. They disintegrate in spectacular fashion. Ares (Jared Leto from Suicide Squad and Morbius) is a soldier that Dillinger has plucked from cyberspace to fight for the highest bidder. 

Dillinger needs the Permanence Code to seal the deal. He soon realizes that Eve is close to retrieving it and sends Ares and his cohort Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith from AppleTV’s Bad Monkey) to track her down. Their search culminates in a spectacular chase with Ares and Athena pursuing Eve on light cycles across crowded city streets at night. Director Joachim Ronning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) shows his biggest strength is juxtaposing classic Tron vehicles with a modern cityscape. 

Unfortunately, he possesses neither Lisberger’s passion nor Kosinki’s imagination, so this movie just pongs from one effects scene to the next. Eve eventually confronts Ares and Athena and then gets sucked into the digital world. Her stay on the Grid is brief, but long enough for her to befriend Ares. He understands that he’s just a pawn in Dillinger’s power play. Ares seeks Eve’s help to gain his humanity. 

They escape back to the real world, but it’s a race against time to locate the Permanence Code before Ares disintegrates again. Meanwhile, Dillinger and Athena team up to take down Eve and Ares. It all leads to a showdown with Athena flying her big-ass airship over the city to attack ENCOM’s headquarters. The highlights of this flick are these scenes of ships cruising the real world with Nine Inch Nails blasting on the soundtrack. 

If you had told me 30 years ago that the edgy industrial beats I was vibing to in my dorm would one day be used for cheesy movie tunes, I would have choked on my Instant Ramen. But, hey, things change. Trent Reznor’s got bills to pay. Speaking of paycheck players, I’m thinking Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges were paid by the minute because their screen time is minimal. They have small but pivotal duties in Tron: Ares. 

Anderson (Agent Scully of X-Files fame) plays the chilly matriarch of the Dillinger clan. She’s Julian’s mom and the daughter of Ed Dillinger, the antagonist of the first flick (David Warner from Time Bandits and Time After Time. He is sorely missed). Anderson’s nerd cred classes up the joint, and she rocks an English accent, but that’s about it. She was raised in England AND the U.S., so the accent is legit. (There’s a thing that I didn’t know before.) 

Bridges’ Flynn is a linchpin character for this franchise. His appearance makes sense, but in this movie it feels more obligatory than essential to the story. Even so, his brief scene is satisfying and a nice homage to the original movie. Just don’t go to the bathroom during the final third or you might miss him. The rest of the cast does a serviceable job, but they’re more types than characters. Neither Lee nor Peters are very memorable despite having major roles. 

They seem to be there mainly to move the plot forward and provide motivation for Ares. Leto and Turner-Smith have charisma and presence, but they do little more than wear the required white and black hats. Leto’s pensive gaze and dramatic pauses convey this AI Pinocchio’s inner turmoil while Turner-Smith gets to strut and seethe. But that’s okay, right? We didn’t come to this show for sterling performances and thespian gymnastics.

Tron: Ares is worth checking out if you’re a fan of the previous two movies, video games, or movies based on video games. It boasts some eye-popping visuals and, yes, that soundtrack rocks. But it’s really more experience than narrative. Tron: Ares is like the cinematic equivalent of a laser light show. Ignore all the flimsy dialogue and weak logic. Just focus on the killer music and cool images. There are worse ways to spend two hours.

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