Before we get into the detailed thoughts, let’s just answer the big question.

Should you watch Tron Ares?

If you liked Tron Legacy then yes, I think you should watch Tron Ares.

It is not as good a film, in my opinion (more on that in a moment), but it still has some fun effects and chase scenes that make the theater experience worth the cost.

If you didn’t like Tron Legacy, you probably won’t like this one. If you haven’t watched Tron Legacy, maybe watch that one first. I really think Tron Legacy is a good time.

How Does Tron Ares do as a Tron Movie?

The Tron films have always been more about the special effects than amazing story. The first one was state of the art when it came out. The second one was also, sort of, state of the art? At least it was early in the digital de-aging game (which wasn’t out of the park) but the look was incredibly unique and well executed.

Unfortunately for Tron Ares, we’ve reached the age of special effects diminishing returns. Now that almost anything can be created relatively convincingly, you’ve got to do something really incredible to stand out, and this often means going back to practical effects (remember when Christopher Nolan made a real mushroom cloud instead of CGing one).

Tron Ares looks great, but because much of it takes place in the real world it doesn’t actually look particularly unique. Let’s compare a couple scenes. Here is the light cycle scene from Tron Legacy (doesn’t the music in this scene just kill, too???):

The scene is fun, action packed, and visually arresting. Let’s compare that to the most similar scene in Tron Ares (I apologize for the voiceover, but we’re primarily concerned with the visuals anyway):

Oh hey, what’s this? Another chase scene with a motorcycle that came out over twenty years ago that looks as good as the Tron Ares scene, but has better action?

Now I don’t mean to be too hard on Tron Ares. They do some fun stuff with the light cycles, and there’s a few shots I really like in there (the wide shots showing the light trails going around the city are neat — and obviously they thought that too because they dip into that well a couple times throughout the movie).

So how does Tron Ares do as a Tron movie? It’s not as visually distinct, and that’s a bummer. That’s a natural consequence of the story choice to bring Tron stuff into the real world, and I think overall that was a good choice, but the visual consequences are unfortunate. It still looks good, but it doesn’t look amazing anymore.

I’m really dumping on it, but I want to make clear that the effects are still good — I do think you should go see this movie in the theater to enjoy the effects and the NIN soundtrack rattling your skull for two hours. It’s funny that I’m being so hard on what is probably the best part because the rest of my review won’t be quite so kind.

So how is Tron Ares as just … a regular movie?

It’s alright! There’s a few things I like, but there’s some more things that hold it back.

I like Ares’s (Jared Leto’s character) arc. He starts off as pretentious Jared Leto, and he ends the movie as almost-human Jared Leto. Excellent character development. It’s a shame we have to put up with pretentious Jared Leto for so long, but that seems his default mode these days. It worked really well in Bladerunner 2049 and that’s about it. ANYWAY. It’s alright.

I don’t love … basically anyone else’s character arcs, because almost everyone is pretty one dimensional. The most egregious case of this is our main villain, a spoiled man-child named Julian (ugh, even his name is obnoxious) who inherited daddy’s business and now it’s in trouble because he’s not as good as his dad so he has to turn to stealing from more talented competitors to pick up the slack or risk disappointing his mother (who is obviously disappointed anyway).

He is as multi-dimensioned as one-ply toilet paper, and as charismatic as chlamydia.

And that’s a real shame, because we spend a BIG chunk of the first act with him, learning his motivation, finding out about his foibles, meeting his mom …

This is the area where Tron Ares really falls short of Tron Legacy. Now, Legacy isn’t some in depth character study, but the movie starts with a flashback that outlines the connection between Sam and his dad, Kevin Flynn from the first movie (Jeff Bridges). That’s followed up by a montage showing that Kevin disappeared, we jump forward a few years, and then we see where Kevin’s company (Encom) is (currently run by corporate goons who care only about money) and where Sam ended up (he’s now a cool, daredevil, motorcycle riding, base-jumping, hacker guy who believes that Encom’s products should be free, just like his dad did).

Sam isn’t amazing, but he’s likable and you understand and sympathize with his motivation. More than that, they do a good job of laying out his obviously conflicted feelings about his dad, which drives the plot forward.

And I mean … Jeff Bridges really carries the movie. He’s the only actor in existence who can say the phrase “biodigital jazz, man” and your eyes don’t immediately roll all the way out of your head and into your popcorn. The way he delivers “He’s my son” near the end still makes me tear up — and it’s not really a tear-jerker of a movie! He’s just fantastic.

That’s honestly the main problem. Well put together. Great effects. A somewhat interesting plot. Decently acted, for the most part. But the characters are all pretty flat. It is what it is.

I guess there’s one other problem

This isn’t necessarily a huge problem, but I just find it kind of hilarious.

At the end of Tron Legacy, Sam and Quora(?) the … digital being, I guess … get out of the grid. Sam pages Alan and then tells him he needs him in the office at 8AM. Big changes are coming! And he tells Quora (Cora? Korah? I don’t know) that he’s got something to show her, and they ride off on his motorcycle and, while they’re riding, the sun comes up.

It’s honestly a decent scene and, I think, a good way to end the film. Other than the fact that Sam looks like a mannequin the whole time.

So we’ve got a few mysteries set up. What’s going to happen at Encom? What’s going to happen with the grid (Sam put a backup or key or something on a necklace he carries with him)? What’s Quora’s deal and what kind of biodigital jazz are they going to get up to (hey-oh!)?

They teased a sequel (a whole cinematic universe, really) and then they grossed about $400 million on a budget of roughly $170 million. Now, the rule of thumb says you need to make 2-3 times your budget to be profitable, so, best-case-scenario, they broke even. Most likely they lost some money, although I wouldn’t call it a bomb.

Tron Ares deals with all these cliffhangers by just … kicking the can down the road. They basically go “Oh yeah, remember those folks from Tron Legacy? They all disappeared! OOOOHHHHHHhhhh, spooky! Now here’s a whole different movie and then at the end of this one we will tease you that in the NEXT movie we’ll resolve the Tron Legacy cliffhangers.”

It’s such a weird way to deal with it. It’s not a soft reboot (let alone a hard reboot), but it’s not a true sequel either. It’s like a … sidequel.

ANYWAY, I’m really looking forward to the fourth movie in the Tron Cinematic Universe where they resolve all these cliffhangers and we finally find out what exactly biodigi–

Oof, $140MM, huh? What was that budget again? $220MM?

I mean, the theatrical run isn’t over. In fact, it’s pretty early in the theatrical run! Like … week 5, maybe? Let’s see how Box Office Mojo says it’s doing!

SO! Not great. If the movie gets really good word of mouth (I’m not helping, I’m sorry) it might approach $200MM, except we’re heading into the holidays when movie slates are pretty full, so it’ll probably drop out of theaters pretty quickly so.

I’ve changed my mind and I regret this blog post

Listen! Tron Ares has a decent soundtrack (especially when blasted out of theater speakers), it has decent action. It has a few laughs, like when they choose a terrible van or when Ares implies that he snooped on our main character and saw her spicy texts. That’s funny, right? He was programmed to do that.

Hey, I can say this. It is Jared Leto’s most humanizing performance in a good while! And Jeff Bridges is in this movie too! Very briefly. But he appears in a throwback to the original Tron, which is a fun little cameo.

You should go see Tron Ares in the theater multiple times. Because I want to know what Biodigital Jazz is and at this rate the next Tron movie is going to come out in 37 years and I will be too old to brave the mad maxian future and see the movie in 7D VR!