FILM REVIEW: TRON – ARES (15) RATING: 3/5

Will TRON ever have a large enough following to make the box-office money it so desperately wants from a big-budget movie?

Yep – as me and my son found out at Easter with the ninety minute plus queue for the Lightcycle ride at Orlando’s Disney World – the appetite is potentially there, but the series really does seem to struggle to reach blockbuster status.

And here, despite visual decadence, this – just like with the original TRON (1982) and it’s Legacy sequel (2010) – never gets out of third gear.

In fact, exactly like those two previous films, this is a three-star flick. Never bad enough to be a two, never pushing a four. The absolute epitome of a ‘solid’ middling movie.

Once again – despite the obligatory Jeff Bridges cameo – one of the issues may be the lack of proper A-list leading star.

Fifteen years after Sam Flynn tried to rescue his father Kevin (Bridges) from the ‘Grid’, Dillinger Systems – led by Ed Dillinger’s (the antagonist of the original film) grandson Julian (X-Men’s Evan ‘Quiksilver’ Peters) and his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) – and ENCOM – with chief executive officer Eve Kim (Greta Lee) at the forefront – are in a race to bring digital constructs to reality. They aim to find the ‘permanence code’ to make digital creations a reality for more than 29 minutes before they expire and de-materialise.

As Eve searches for a more practical approach in a remote Alaskan station – set up by by ENCOM’s former CEO Kevin many years ago – to try and find a solution, Julian has taken to more brazen methods by creating Ares (played by Oscar winner Jared Leto), a Master Control Program (MCP) who is deemed to be the ‘perfect, expendable soldier’.

But when things inevitably go awry, and Ares goes ‘rogue’ when he becomes self-aware, he enters the real-world and is tracked by his second in command Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), as things get out of control.

To the backdrop of an impressive Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, there are multiple visually-breathtaking set-pieces – usually involving the super-cool Lightcycles – that lead to a paint-by-numbers storyline, that won’t really linger in the memory for very long.

Perfectly passable popcorn-crunching fare, but absolutely nothing in terms of ingenuity to make it stand out.

Which leaves us looking for the ultimate TRON movie waiting to break out – and still makes the most impressive thing about the franchise the aforementioned ride at Disney World.

Quite literally the epitome of ‘style over substance’.

ESP Rating: 3/5

Gavin Miller

Odeon Luxe Peterborough & Showcase Cinema De Lux Peterborough, Out Now

Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Gillian Anderson, Arturo Castro, Hasan Minhaj, Cameron Monaghan & Jeff Bridges

Running Time: 1 Hr 59 Mins

Director: Joachim Ronning

Film Review Venue: Odeon Luxe Imax Peterborough

For all the latest film information & showtimes at Peterborough’s Showcase Cinema De Lux & Odeon Luxe cinemas go to www.odeon.co.uk and www.showcasecinemas.co.uk