My Cultural Diet

I’ve always thought that 2010’s Tron: Legacy was an unnecessary sequel, but it’s practically a vital piece of genre filmmaking compared to Tron: Ares, a pretty-looking but ultimately vapid film in which Jared Leto plays a cyber-warrior spawned from the depths of the Grid who begins to question his programming. The original Tron worked as well as it did, and still feels far-reaching and futuristic, because it was ultimately a fantasy film in which the computer is a magical realm. (To be fair, computers probably did seem quite a bit more magical 40 years ago than they do today.) But with its AI-centric plot and tatted up “tech bro” villain, Tron: Ares feels instantly dated, and while I never look to Hollywood for accurate depictions of computer technology and usage — see “2 Idiots 1 Keyboard” — Tron: Ares feels particularly egregious in that regard. Given its $200 million budget, some of the film’s visuals are pretty slick, like the climactic scene of a Recognizer drifting through the real world, but even they have diminishing returns. As for the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, well, it deserved a better film than it got.

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