Tron: Ares

How did Disney manage to mess this up every time? The flaws in the first Tron are understandable. The filmmakers were trying to push the envelope with dazzling new technology (though almost all the effects in 1982's Tron were achieved with traditional hand-drawn animation techniques, and only 15 or so minutes of actual CGI are in the film), so they understandably fell back on their usual form of storytelling: granting human characteristics to non-human entities. Instead of mice, ducks, and dogs, Tron features anthropomorphized computer programs, complete with genders, personalities, and emotions. The first legacequel, Tron: Legacy, the directorial debut of Joseph Kosinski, offered a major opportunity to revisit that world with actual state-of-the-art technology, but Kosinski and screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz forgot to craft a decent story, so the only notable aspects of Tron: Legacy are the enjoyable Daft Punk soundtrack and an early uncanny example of CGI de-aging technology.

The latest film, Tron: Ares, is much worse than either of its predecessors. It's a loud, cluncky mess with nothing to say about artificial intelligence or humanity. TV actor Evan Peters plays as Julian Dillinger, the grandson of David Warner's character in the original Tron, Ed Dillinger. Julian is the CEO of his grandfather's company, Dillinger Systems, which he inherited from his mother (Gillian Anderson in a thankless role). Julian creates the ultimate fighting program, Ares (Jared Lito), who he plans to unleash on the real world once he can figure out how to make the entities and hardware he transfers from the digital world exist permanently in our world. So far, no one has figured out how any of this stuff lasts longer than 29 minutes. But almost as soon as Aries comes online, he starts to develop emotions, empathy, and a desire to be free from his master. He learns about Flynn, Jeff Bridges's character in the past Tron films, who built an empire from video games after becoming the first user to get digitized into "the grid." After Flynn's death, his company was taken over by two sisters. One of them passed away from cancer, but the other sister, Eve, played by Greta Lee (Gemini, Past Lives), is also on the hunt for this permanent code.

That's the basic setup, and I guess it makes sense, but the rest of the film lacks any logic. From the way the hardware and software work, to the characters' motivations, to the tired tropes of top-level tech people being shulbby doofuses, to a computer program having a taste for '80s pop (aren't we tired of this yet?), to the notion that a guy working at a gas station would own an Audi R8. Dillinger is one of the worst movie villains I've seen in a long, long time. He literally sits up in his office watching what his programs execute his commands on a screen. I guess this lame role shouldn't be that surprising, since this is pretty much all Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor did in the terrible James Gunn Superman film released a few months earlier. I guess 50 other villains in the past thirty years have been limited to this "action." Ever since Goldeneye in 1995 we've been settled with both heroes and villains who are tied to screens, and even when we go back-and-forth from those characters watching those screens, to the fighters or soldiers or spies in the field that they're giving commands to the, every single time we cut back to someone looking at a screen it underminds any interest we have in the action being undertakem. There are very few exceptions to this; the opening to Skyfall is perhaps one, but I mean, come on, who wants to go to a movie about people looking at screens? It's the audience that looks at the screen, not the characters.

Of course, Warner's Ed Dillinger also just sat at a desk issuing commands, but in Tron, Warner got to play a dual role as the evil Sark, the program charged with hunting down Flynn once he's in the game. In this movie, Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim, After Yang, White Noise) gets that role. She's effectively sinister as Athena, Ares's henchwoman, but it is never explained why Ares, who is programmed to be the ultimate force of destruction, would develop a conscience so instantly and question his directives, but his second in command would not. Lee almost survives this movie without embarrassing herself, but not quite. (Her final shot features some cringeworthy green screen acting!).

Even when this movie takes us back to Flynn's 1980s arcade grid, with the original Tron's '80s style digital effects and a visit from an elderly Flynn—who looks like The Dude by way of Marlon Brando's Jor-El—there's not much enjoyment to be found. That's because there's nothing for Flynn to pass on to Ares that's worthy of Jeff Bridges' presence. The soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails is booming and thrusting, but doesn't have any of the ingenuity of Wendy Carlos's original themes or the Daft Punk sequel. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross serve as executive producers on this phone, but their music is surprisingly bland and forgettable, as is this movie.

Perhaps the question shouldn't be, How did Disney mess this up twice? Maybe it really should be, How the hell did anybody think that Tron was a substantial enough property to build an entire series or universe around. The original film, co-written and directed by Steven Lisberger, is by no measure a good movie, but it does have several aspects that make it a fun movie. In addition to the score and the undeniably cool visual graphics, there is Jeff Bridges' laughably over-the-top eager-beaver performance. Literally every one of his line deliveries is awful, but it’s so awful that it’s kind of amusing. Similarly, the "magnificent" 70mm production values are undercut by Bruce Logan's cinematography, which looks like he was unable to convince Disney to rent enough lights to get a decent exposure on the 70mm negative for the real-world scenes. The ludicrous story and campy special effects of the original Tron still cast an oddly human spell on the viewer, making it a quintessential example of a 2 1/2-star movie. It's not good, but highly watchable and entertaining in its own unique so-bad-it's-good way. If only the same could be said of the sequels