After a refresher this weekend on the first two films, I headed to the theater for Tron: Ares. It was labeled as a soft reboot but really is another sequel, picking up years after the second film in the series. It ended up bombing at the theaters, but the future of the franchise looked pretty bleak after the second movie (and the first movie didn’t do great back in ’82 either), so maybe they’ll make another one day? I’m hoping so, because I actually enjoyed it.
Sam Flynn is out the picture, and running the company now is Eve Kim, opposed by Dillinger’s (bad guy from the first film) grandson, who has his own company. Both groups are working towards the same goal, what they call the “permanence code.” We know from past Tron movies that people can physically enter “the grid” (computer networks), and the companies have made it possible to bring computer programs into the real world, but for some reason, they only last for 29 minutes before the programs fall apart (literally) and disintegrate. If they can figure it out to make those programs permanent, it could solve many of the world’s problems. Imagine writing a program about a field of fruit-producing trees and them 3D print them into the real world — no more starvation. Eve and her counterpart Julian Dillinger want to fix that problem (her to solve the world’s problems, him to print advanced weapons and super soldiers to sell to the military), and it’s a race to who gets there first.
To meet his goal, Julian has written a program named Ares (Jared Leto) who is hunting for the permanence code. Eve actually comes up with it first, so Ares is seeking her, and as a computer program with immediate access to anything that is networked (security cameras, text messages, etc) he’s pretty fast. And he has to be fast, because every time he is brought into the real world, he has just 29 minutes before he goes away and has to be re-integrated. There’s a lot of techy stuff here and it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but the film is action packed and a wild ride from beginning to end. It does set up for another sequel (which, based on box office numbers, may not come any time soon) but I hope Disney continues this train at some point. ★★★★
Jons Movie Takes 