Tron: Ares (dir. Joachim Rønning)
By: Adam Freed
It is unclear if it is Mickey or Minnie Mouse who is responsible for pressing the panic button at Disney Studios, regardless of which beloved rodent is tasked with the job, it is officially time for one of them to spring into action. The most recent cause for alarm to befoul the studio nestled in the shadow of “The Happiest Place on Earth” is Tron: Ares, a soulless, style over substance VFX slog of a science fiction thriller. Director Joachim Rønning (Young Woman and the Sea, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) helms the nightmarish second sequel to the 1982 Disney original Tron. Disney’s latest iteration of the digital-based adventure finds a way to inexcusably misuse its greatest asset in the generationally gifted performer Greta Lee (Past Lives). Doubling down on its woefully underwritten characters, the studio unthinkably asks audiences to emotionally invest into a two dimensional Jared Leto performance so void of meaning that calling it wooden would unfairly identify it as being the product of something that was once alive. What preserves a modicum of respectability for Rønning’s sci-fi misstep is a blistering soundtrack care of Academy Award winning composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (The Social Network, Challengers) with the help of Reznor’s legendary band Nine Inch Nails.
It feels nearly impossible, yet shamefully predictable that a Disney film rooted in the existence of Artificial Intelligence should have so little to say about one of the most controversial topics threatening the film industry in at least half a century. It is unclear through Tron: Ares if the powerhouse studio is attempting to normalize the idea of using an emotionally void AI centralized character, in this case, a vain and tiresome Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) performance as the film’s titular character Ares. The irksome script assures that audiences know the name Ares is derived from the god of war, a fact that the film mentions at nauseum, without ever truly demonstrating that Leto’s synthetic character is bestowed with any emotional traits befitting a warrior.
An equally damnable sin committed within Tron: Ares is that the film creates a visually intriguing digital world known as The Grid, yet makes no attempt to define the constraints or rules of said world. The unfortunate result is a series of exposition-laden events that are intended to constitute the film’s narrative structure, but instead present like a digitized migraine headache. The visual cacophony of spiraling lasers and mind numbing green screen constructions amount to a two hour voyage into digitized nothingness. Despite the adrenaline infusion provided by Reznor and Ross, even its score, easily the most laudable element within Tron: Ares feels far better suited for a film with something to say. Lost in the empty calories of navigating tech villains racing against AI heroes in pursuit of a "Permanence Code” is any semblance of meaningful dramatic stakes. Amidst the myriad of missteps committed within Tron: Ares, the most egregious is that Joachim Rønning and Disney gained access to the emotional range and mirror neuron-inducing screen magnetism of Greta Lee and reduced her to a character in peril. If ever there was reasonable cause for the gloved hand of Mickey Mouse to “break glass in case of emergency” now feels like the appropriate time.
Target Score: 3/10 - Only the profound gifts of composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross lends a semblance of credibility to Disney’s dull and convoluted Tron: Ares. The production squanders its greatest gifts and fails to generate any curiosity in what, in more capable hands, could have become a unique science fiction spectacle.