Throughout the year, I have a fair number of movie conversations. I mention this because in more than 40 years of reviewing, no one in my admittedly limited circle has ever wondered why there weren't more sequels to Tron, the 1982 movie that was admired for its CGI innovation but fell short in most other ways.
Tron may have spawned its share of devotees. If so, I don't happen to know any of them.
I begin my review of Tron: Ares, the third Tron installment, this way because I wondered why Disney had opted to give Tron another run. Had advances in CGI allowed for richer visual expression? Have current obsessions with AI spurred enthusiasm for a story in which virtual reality plays such a significant role?
I don't know, but I do know how Tron: Ares, which I saw in IMAX, struck me. Mostly, it didn't.
Brimming with red-hued visuals and offering complex visualizations of The Grid (the movie's version of virtual reality), Tron: Ares builds a world that alternates between captivating and repetitive.
As was the case with the first installment, story often feels less than compelling. Director Joachim Ronning sets up a simple conflict as two tech moguls (Greta Lee and Evan Peters) square off at a moment when science has advanced to the point where virtual programs (seen in human form) can be transported into the real world.
A moral problem results. Lee's Eve Kim wants to use these AI creations to help humankind; Peters' Julian Dillinger aims to enhance the authoritarian power he craves by transporting state-of-the art warriors into his real-life world.
Dillinger wins the race to bring virtual beings into reality, but with a catch. After 29 minutes, his creations collapse into piles of debris. Not to worry. Kim has an antidote. Using work initiated by her late sister, Kim discovers a code that can sustain the life of virtual beings indefinitely.
The big twist, I suppose, involves a change of heart by Ares (Jared Leto), Dillinger's warrior in chief. Ares quickly (too quickly perhaps) begins to question his main directive, which requires him to capture Kim so that Dillinger can retrieve the desired code. Ares's unexpected flaw: benevolence.
Lee gives Kim the requisite enthusiasm, but her performance is subordinated to the movie's ongoing light show. A mostly deadpan Leto adds flickers of wit to Ares's repertoire. At one point, Ares affirms his desire to become human by confessing that he prefers the synth-pop music of Depeche Mode to the classicism of Mozart.
Action pounds and abounds. As the plot unfolds, spiffy light cycles race through city streets, trailing red beams that turn the movie into a showy spectacle, displays that seem more the point than the outcome of any of the movie's many chase sequences. A mood-setting Nine Inch Nails score pushes toward the final credits, which include a short epilogue.
Among the supporting performances, Gillian Anderson registers as Elizabeth Dillinger, Julian's conscience-stricken mother.
References to the first movie can be found, and, of course, Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Kevin Flynn, hero of the first edition. Bridges's late picture appearance made me wonder whether The Dude hadn't dropped in on a sci-fi epic. If only he had.
Whether AI poses an imminent threat to humanity is a subject for others to consider. As for Tron: Ares: I seldom felt the one quality any movie, whether virtual or reality-based, should provide: involvement.
