3 min to read
Tron Ares
How is the newest Tron movie?
Review: My expectations for this movie were to (1) have incredible visuals, (2) have a simple/mediocre story, (3) have a wonderful soundtrack and score, and (4) to be quite disappointed by Jared Leto. To my surprise, I was actually not let down by the movie as much as I thought it would. The aspect of the movie that is the best is obviously going to be the visuals. Every time they have the tron vehicles outside of the Grid it was just beautiful. These vehicles are always out when it’s dark outside, so the bright vibrant colors of the vehicles and the light trails/Tron Lines (whatever you call them) contrast incredibly with the city at night, making the visuals just stunning to look at.
Despite having incredible visuals, they couldn’t save the story from being as simple as possible. Prior to seeing this I watched Tron Legacy for the first time since 2010, and I admit I was quite disappointed by how boring the story was, especially in the 2nd half. While this movie sets aside/betrays the ending of Legacy, I found the story in this movie inherently more engaging than Legacy. While Legacy’s story was about trying to escape the Grid, this movie was about kicking the grid out of real life. While the Grid can be fun at times (and looks visually awesome), adding vehicles from the Grid to the real world makes the stakes seem so much more real than in Legacy, making the story much more interesting to me. I also think seeing Tron/Grid action in the real world looks so much cooler than it does in the Grid.
The next best part of the movie was the soundtrack and score. When I heard the Nine Inch Nails (NIN) songs in the trailers of the movie I was expecting the entire movie to sound like their songs, which I was not looking forward to. To my surprise, NIN did a fantastic job following Daft Punk’s incredible work in Legacy. Despite the simple story, the score is the driving force of the movie. It is loud and full of bass, it is fun, and it was incredible to absorb in pure IMAX volume.
As for Jared Leto, I was also pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed his performance. I know people have mixed opinions about him as a person and as an actor, but he did a wonderful job playing an AI that came to life that has little emotional range. I also think that his black, slicked back hair also fit the vibe of the movie quite well, so his casting actually felt appropriate for the movie.
Overall, I found the movie to be quite fun. It’s not complex, it’s not emotional, and it’s not the most moving story of all time. It was made to show off the Tron world again with incredible visuals and an incredibly pounding score. It beat my expectations, so I don’t have much to complain about.
As a note, I was talking with my friend who is a big fan of Tron Legacy. Since this movie ignores the ending of Legacy to do its own thing, the first half of the movie really irritated him as it felt like the movies had no inherent connection, making Legacy feel pointless. If you also enjoy Legacy, you also may be quite irritated at the beginning of the movie when they explain how/why Sam is not in this movie, making you not enjoy the movie as much as I do. I understand this issue with the movie, but I was already watching this movie more as an independent movie in the franchise rather than a sequel, so it didn’t bother me at all
Rating: 3.5/5
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