Tron: Ares

In this story the Flynn family are history. Protagonist Eve Kim plays the Kevin/Sam Flynn role as ENCOM's CEO, dripping with performative effective altruism that doesn't exist in traded companies. On the opposing side is the antagonist Julian Dillinger. With Julian's grandfather being the villainous Ed Dillinger from the first movie, an absence of good appears to run in the family. Julian makes it clear early on that everyone is expendable.

Kim and Dillinger are in a race to make physical representations of things from the digital world permanent. They can laser 3D print things that last no longer than 30 minutes. Solving that problem would mean Kim could laser print butter or Dillinger could print guns. Because she's the good person and he's bad. Yes, the movie is that simple.

Kevin Flynn, using 1980s computer hardware and programming languages solved this problem decades ago. Securing that knowledge is the plot driver. With super soldier, and first movie easter egg, Ares, dispatched by Dillinger to handle Kim when she finds what they are both looking for we now have our leads. Kim, the crusading CEO of a video games company and her Frankenstein monster protector, Ares.

Ares falls in love with our world and they go on the run. Dillinger being inept at the moment it counts loses control of his 3D printed forces. Characters in neon fight each other until only one remains. That is the movie. A simple story demands spectacular action to compensate. Ares delivers neither.

The actors and the action in this film are two places where the producers saved money. Jared Leto gives a passable performance as a cliche born yesterday hero. Greta Lee's Kim is not an interesting character and isn't played as such. Evan Peters is more Tony Stark before he got shrapnel in the chest than techbro villain which is a refreshing change. As for the action scenes, the choreography was bland and it's filmed in a way that saps it of excitement.

Tron Legacy had a more complex plot and better visuals. We have not had the level of technical advancement in effects that would justify another Tron movie. The original and Tron Legacy have distinct visual styles. Tron: Ares is a 2020s blockbuster movie with a neon strip. You've seen the Tron combat and light cycle races done better. The score was better in the prior two movies. Some of the musical cues striking me as being incorrectly placed to support the scene it's playing over. 

There is nothing action focused in the cinema now so if you want one this is it. If you need to see something on the big screen this will be big enough and loud enough to justify the trip. But you won't remember any of this later. Nothing will stick with you.

At the end of Frankenstein the monster, a self-educated created being, having lived on his own terms goes to Antarctica to die. A story like that about Ares would have been a complete movie. What we get here is a reboot with dull action and a simple story where the studio hopes to start a franchise.

You can have the action or the story not work, but you can't have both fail on the screen. This is not the movie to start a franchise.