Tron: Ares (2025) Dir: Joachim Rønning
- Ridley Coote
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
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The 'Tron' franchise has always been style over substance, but when a new film was announced, it really felt like this would be taken to a new level. The film was directed by Joachim Rønning, which did particularly encourage confidence. But, in fairness, I was not necessarily expecting to see a good film - I was mainly watching it to see some hopefully cool cinematography, and to hear what I already knew to be a belter of a soundtrack.
The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack was indeed brilliant, but the sound design and editing was terrible. It kept cutting off or dulling down the music to cram in the woeful, repetitive, and horrendously obvious dialogue. The film really did not deserve that soundtrack, my goodness. If someone muted the dialogue and just let the music and foley play, the film would legitimately be a better viewing experience.
The visuals were solid, but nowhere near the levels of aesthetic excellence achieved in 'Tron: Legacy'. The film was full of lazy and blatant product placement, which has become such a frustrating element of big budget cinema these days. I loved how everything in 'The Grid' looked - the problem was that hardly any of the film took place there, with most of it taking place in the dullness of the real world.
The story was literally good tech CEO and good AI versus bad tech CEO and bad AI. I mean, it really was that on the nose. The writing was diabolical. This was so clearly corporate propaganda - it wasn't even pretending not to be. If not for the soundtrack and some of the cinematography, I would have walked out of the cinema - something unheard of for me. It really was that awful. The film had the subtlety of a fart in church. It made the narrative of 'Legacy' feel like an Academy award winning screenplay.
I like Greta Lee a lot, but this was not a great performance from her. She looked like she didn't want to be there, half the time, which, in fairness, I can't really blame her for. Jared Leto did at least feel semi-believable, at times, but that may be because of his irksome method acting antics off-screen. The only actor who actually delivered a good performance was Evan Peters, in spite of the horrendous dialogue he was given. The likes of Gillian Anderson, Jodie Turner-Smith, and the briefly returning Jeff Bridges, all tried and failed to make something of their very forgettable characters, which really does sum-up a lot of the film; forgettable.
Overall, I really wouldn't bother watching the film, if I were you. Just listen to the album - it's genuinely excellent. The film fails to utilise even that to its fullest, and underwhelms in just about every other department. This was a major misstep, and a glaring example of what happens when studios think they're smarter than they are. For a film that spent so much of its time talking about artificial intelligence, it really did feel like it was written by one.
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