FILM
TRON: ARES
TRIP THE LIGHT-CYCLE FANTASTIC
Let the battle for AI supremacy commence.
★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 119 MINS
DIRECTOR Joachim Rønning
CAST Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges
PLOT A sophisticated AI program known as Ares (Leto) is brought into the real world — triggering a deadly fight over the future of the technology.
TRON HAS ALWAYS been a bit of a gamble. The original 1982 Steven Lisberger-directed sci-fi, about computer programmers entering vast, gleaming software landscapes, was a huge risk, being one of the first films to make extensive use of CGI. Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy, the belated 2010 sequel, was almost as risky, among other things for its early use of de-ageing technology, and for playing with what Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn described as “bio-digital jazz, man!” This third feature-length effort is a gamble, too: another revival of a series that has never quite earned enough critical or box-office love. To nudge it over that line, Disney has hired Norwegian director Joachim Rønning, a blockbuster-sequel specialist for the studio (Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil), and an apparent safe pair of hands. As groundbreaking as the original was, it’s a shame this latest effort pulls some of its creative punches — but it is, if nothing else, sufficiently pretty and noisy.