Tron: Ares Parent Guide

Digital technology has advanced at a frightening pace, and now two companies are on the cusp of changing the world forever. Both Dillinger Systems, led by aggressive and volatile CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) and ENCOM, led by the much cooler-headed and more charitably minded Eve Kim (Greta Lee) have developed a technology that can bring complex machines and even humanoid programs into the real world. The current limit on the technology is a brief 29 minute lifespan for anything created through the systems, but both companies are on the hunt for a rumored “Permanence Code”. Whoever finds it first will effectively rule the world.

To that end, Dillinger has created a digital supersoldier, Ares (Jared Leto). Inhumanly strong, fast, and smart, Ares can simply be copied and printed again if he’s killed or runs out of time. What Dillinger didn’t expect was for Ares to develop feelings, a desire for a real life off the Grid. Dillinger wants Ares to hunt down Eve Kim and steal whatever progress she’s made on the Permanence Code – but Ares may want that code for himself.

The film quickly settles into a truly exhausting banality that belies the neon-trimmed excitement promised on the poster. Jared Leto is equally emotive whether or not his helmet is covering his face - but this isn’t all his fault. The writing is, at best, tedious, but more frequently downright execrable. I was annoyed within the first ten minutes, downright hostile in the first twenty, and working my way through the seven stages of grief by the halfway mark.

Tron: Ares is just so blandly generic. The film would likely have been better off had they just run a blank screen with the aggressive techno-synth score, which was about the only part of the movie I enjoyed. You could argue that the point of the film is as a high-speed visual effects demo, but it doesn’t even look better than the fifteen-year-old Tron: Legacy. I’m not impressed.

The content issues are, however, fairly mild – a smattering of mild profanity, some mostly digital violence, and a very brief scene of adult drinking round out this absolutely soporific flick. At least, I think that’s all. The film plunged me into levels of boredom nearly unplumbed by mortal man, and while my mind at first merely wandered, I soon found it taking a protracted expedition for more interesting shores. Next time the Nine Inch Nails want to make a cool synth album, I’d appreciate it if we could forego the movie.