Tron: Ares (12A)

Julian Dillinger, grandson of ENCOM's Machiavellian former president Ed Dillinger, summons his Ares security program from the Grid to our world to hunt down ENCOM's current CEO, Eve Kim. She is continuing the groundbreaking work of Kevin Flynn and stands on the brink of discovering the elusive Permanence Code. Julian covets the fabled code and defies the orders of his mother Elisabeth to weaponise Ares against Eve and her associates.

LondonNet Film Review

Tron: Ares (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

In Greek mythology, Ares was the god of war and son to Zeus and Hera. He was often depicted in conflict with his wise and noble half-sister, Athena. Sibling rivalry spills into our AI-imperilled reality in a high-octane sequel to the 2010 film Tron: Legacy, which welcomes a new director to the franchise, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Ronning. The two previous instalments dating back to 1982 transmitted flesh and blood protagonists into the Grid to defeat digital armies with expertly tossed identity discs…

Tron: Ares reverses the flow of data and welcomes weaponised denizens of the digital domain into our 21st-century reality for a vicious power struggle over lines of code that can stabilise objects created by digitising lasers. Screenwriter Jesse Wigutow opts for a simple narrative fabricated in the same mould as Terminator by dispatching a mechanised warrior to hunt down the film’s gutsy human heroine. Her tenderness and empathy compel the high-tech hunter to rebel against his programming and assign himself a new directive as valiant protector.

Wigutow’s script repurposes the Monster’s dialogue from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful!” – as the title character’s self-empowering battle cry before he faces off against a hulking Recognizer aerial transporter to a bombastic soundtrack composed by industrial rock outfit Nine Inch Nails. Game on.

Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), grandson of ENCOM’s Machiavellian former president Ed Dillinger, writes code dubbed Ares (Jared Leto) in his capacity as CEO of ENCOM’s sworn rival, Dillinger Systems. The Ares security programme is designed to repel attacks and, when covertly planted in other mainframes, can steal precious lines of code to realise Julian’s grand vision of AI-controlled military technology.

Ares is summoned from the Grid to our world with his officious second-in-command, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), and the pair hunt down ENCOM’s current CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee). She is continuing the groundbreaking work of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and stands on the brink of discovering the elusive Permanence Code. Julian covets the prize and defies the orders of his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) to weaponise Ares against Eve and her associates including boyfriend Seth (Arturo Castro) and ENCOM’s Chief Technology Officer Ajay Singh (Hasan Minhaj).

Tron: Ares is a visually stunning third chapter that invests more time and effort in achieving sensory overload than engineering a compelling plot. Leto lacks an emotion processing chip for the majority of the two-hour running time so Past Lives breakout star Lee confidently shoulders the burden for tugging heartstrings between slickly executed set pieces astride a turbo-charged lightcycle. Bridges’ fleeting appearance unifies the three missions to date and an additional scene hardcoded into the end credits teases the next software update.

– Jo Planter