Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: The third installment in the “Tron” series and the sequel to 2010s “Tron: Legacy,” “TRON: Ares” follows a super-intelligent AI soldier named Ares (Jared Leto) sent from the digital Grid to Earth on a dangerous mission. “Since time began, man has gazed at the stars and he has wondered, ‘Am I alone?’ So much talk of AI and big tech today,” says Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). “Virtual worlds. What are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well folks, we’re not going there. They are coming here. I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate soldier.”

CAST: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges. Directed by Joachim Rønning.

REVIEW: Given the attitude in Hollywood toward AI, it’s no surprise “TRON: Ares” can be boiled down to one basic premise: Humans, great; AI, bad.

The story of rival tech companies, Dillinger Systems, whose megalomaniacal CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) has his eyes on writing “his name on the face of time… in blood,” and Encom, run by the idealist Eve Kim (Greta Lee), the movie is an old-fashioned story of good and evil dressed up with a bunch of high-tech jargon.

As Dillinger unveils his latest project to an assembled group of military leaders, it seems like he has invented the ultimate fighting machine, an AI warrior named Ares (Jared Leto). He’s the most sophisticated security code ever written, completely controllable, virtually unbeatable, and, if anyone does manage to kill him, Dillinger brags, we’ll just create another version of him.

What Dillinger fails to mention is that his creation can only stay “alive” for 29 minutes before collapsing in a pile of digital dust.

Meanwhile, Kim has discovered the secret “permanence code,” a bit of programming that allows digital creations to survive and thrive in the real world. Dillinger wants the code and sends his fighting machines Ares and Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) to retrieve it by any means necessary.

There’s more, mostly about Ares and his decision to embrace humanity and Kim’s grief over the loss of her sister to cancer but this movie is more about the whiz-bang special effects and trippy trip into the Grid than it is about Ares’s Pinocchio-esque transformation into a real boy.

As deep as a lunch tray, the story, such that it is, is mostly an excuse to set the AI creations into action with cool, neon-lit Light Cycles and menacing bat wings.

Also a vehicle for large dollops of pop psychology—”I guess that’s the thing about life,” Ares muses as he searches for the permanence code, “there’s nothing permanent about it.”—and even some rom com flourishes—“Can I trust you?” Ares asks Eve a couple times in the film. “Probably not,” replies Eve coyishly. —“TRON: Ares” tells its simple story with a blur of digitized gloss.

Worse, the script by Jesse Wigutow, treats the audience as though they’re not paying attention. For instance, mid-chase Eve pulls out the hard drive with the permanence code she’s carrying to remind us why the chase is happening in the first place.  Need to get caught up non information you already have? Check out Ares’s high-tech exposition dump that looks cool but adds nothing new.

“TRON: Ares” will make your eyeballs dance (and you may even want to dance to the dynamic Nine Inch Nails soundtrack) but it won’t engage your brain.