Tron: Ares - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Don't know who was demanding another trip down the neon-soaked rabbit hole of the Grid, but Joachim Rønning's Tron: Ares is what happens when a studio decides spectacle compensates for good storytelling. Granted, the third entry to the cult franchise succeeds on the visual splendor, an utterly dazzling feast for the eyes, particularly when the digital realm bleeds into our messy, analog world. However, peel back that oft-stunning, glowing veneer, and we're left with a plot that's as fresh and exciting as a floppy disk, a melodramatic slog with a premise so contrived it feels dreamt up by a committee of bots arguing over which cliché to use next. The sequel is a gorgeous mess that sidesteps its predecessors' more cerebral, if also flawed, exploration about artificial intelligence and identity in favor of pretty pictures that stumble to deliver a compelling tale worth caring about.

The script has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer wrapped in fiber optic cables, leaving zero room for nuance or imagination, spoon-feeding everything to the audience in case they miss the point. The filmmakers' intentions are practically announced in neon lights at every point. When Ares wistfully stares at rain in the real world and suddenly begins experiencing an existential crisis, I half-expected Keenen Ivory Wayans's character from Don't Be a Menace to pop up and yell, "Message!" The film practically pauses for slow-motion close-ups and plodding zooms as if screaming, "Ares is just a digital soul trying to become more, wanting to be real." Oh, wait, the supposed villain, Julian Dillinger, actually does scream that he's Pinocchio turning into a real boy! Heck, the insufferable man-child bad guy is so ineffectual and incompetent that he blatantly declares his doom-worthy plans in a PowerPoint presentation for the audience.

As if suffering all these cringe-inducing moments were not bad enough, Jared Leto shows up as the titular Ares, delivering the precise blend of cold detachment we could expect from a burgeoning AI program struggling with its identity. But his portrayal is so aggressively distant, stoic, and utterly devoid of warmth that it's difficult to settle on it being a brilliant performance or just another example of Leto’s current acting range. I'm leaning more toward the latter, as the entire production feels like an indulgent vanity project aimed at realizing Leto's dreams of starring in his own Marvel-style Tron franchise, positioning himself as the central hero of the Tron Cinematic Universe. At this point in his career, and after three massively failed attempts, a digital Prometheus who philosophizes over the music of Depeche Mode is absolutely never going to happen. And the desperate sequel-baiting is so ham-fisted and eye-rolling that it feels less like an open-ended cliffhanger and more like an Eddie Bauer men's accessory commercial. Or, as my colleague Matt Hartman put it, "'BoxOffice Flop' ... the new fragrance from Tron."

Unfortunately, the supporting cast doesn't fare much better, although they try their best with what they're given. Greta Lee's Eve Kim, the current CEO of ENCOM searching for Kevin Flynn's Permanence Code, is saddled with a half-baked budding romance subplot with Ares that goes nowhere while also feeling weirdly awkward and vaguely unsettling to watch, like some fan-fiction fever dream. Evan Peters and Gillian Anderson are sadly wasted as forgettable antagonists who pose about as much threat as a pop-up ad interrupting a video game, serving as little more than window dressing in a story that sorely needs to raise the stakes. However, the true standout is Jodie Turner-Smith as Athena, a ruthlessly efficient assassin program so lethal, calculated, and terrifying that she should be hunting Sarah Connor instead. She brings genuine danger in every scene she steals, making me wish there was more of her than the rest of the cast. 

Ultimately, Tron: Ares is entertaining enough purely for the spectacular visuals if we squint really hard past the melodrama, but it's a downgrade from the previous two versions, stripping away any potential for richer discussions about AI or humanity. Whereas the previous movies trusted viewers to engage with complex ideas about the nature of creation, control, and digital consciousness, Ares wants to make sure viewers received the memo, hitting audiences over the head with the filmmakers' intentions. In the end, all we're left with is a wannabe Frankenstein riff that's really just Pinocchio with RGB lighting, a dull tale of a digital boy fighting to be a real boy after seeing a few raindrops. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
We enter the grid once again on disc for Tron: Ares. A 4KUHD + Blu-ray + Digital set, the discs come housed in a standard case with slipcover artwork. The 4K is pressed on a BD66 disc with a BD50 serving the 1080p and bonus content. Both discs are Region Free. The discs load to a standard Disney language option menu before loading to an animated main menu with standard navigation options for the User. 

A programmed hero breaks into the real world with a stunner of an Ultra HD release, boasting razor-sharp clarity from start to finish. From the fabric and stitching of clothing to intricate features of buildings and various vehicles, the HEVC H.265 encode is striking and highly detailed. Transported directly from a digital source, the native 4K transfer also arrives with pitch-perfect contrast balance, showering the visuals with brilliant, squeaky-clean whites and crisp, resplendent specular highlights. On the other end, black levels are exceptionally inky and velvety with deeply rich, stygian shadows that never obscure the finer details and show outstanding gradations between the various shades, providing the 2.39:1 image with an excellent three-dimensional quality. The Dolby Vision HDR presentation also arrives with a full-bodied, sumptuous array of colors with primaries, in particular, dazzling the screens, and skin tones appear healthy and accurate while also highly revealing.

The only issue holding the transfer from perfection is noticeable instances of aliasing along the sharpest edges when Ares visits Flynn's original Grid. But aside from that, this is a stunningly gorgeous, near reference-quality video. It'd be really nitpicky to go below a full score. (Dolby Vision HDR Video Rating: 98/100)

Likewise, the box-office flop debuts on 4K with an equally impressive, demo-worthy Dolby Atmos soundtrack that ignites home theaters with aggressively energetic music and continuous activity. Imaging continuously feels expansive and spacious as background effects fluidly move across the soundstage and into the top heights. The midrange is superbly clean and extensive, maintaining extraordinary clarity during the loudest segments, and the low-end is robust and potent, providing the visuals with a commanding presence and palpable weight although it never pushes into the lower depths. Atmospherics flawlessly pan between the surrounds and heights with impressive ease, generating an effective and immersive hemispheric soundfield that puts viewers in the middle of the action, making for a highly engaging and remarkable lossless object-based track. (Dolby Atmos Audio Rating: 96/100)

Entering the bonus features games, Tron: Ares is given a pretty basic package of extras. The making-of content is brief and choppy without much genuine insight into the making of the film. Pretty standard talking head EPK material. The dedicated look at the Lightcycles is a little interesting, but again very brief and cut in such a way that segments feel like they're pulled for promotional clips instead of dedicated, insightful bonus content. In a similar vein, the Cast Conversations is all the material we saw during the film's aggressive marketing campaign. The two minutes of deleted scenes, including the cameo from original Tron director Steve Lisberger, are nonstarters. All told, you're looking at less than 40-minutes of extra features content. 

• The Journey to Tron: Ares (HD 11:41)
• Lightcycles on the Loose (HD 6:57)
• The Artistry of Tron: Ares (HD 6:17)
• Cast Conversations (HD 4:55)
• The Legacy of Tron (HD 5:12)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 2:17)
• Seth's Date
• Burning Man
• Lisberger Cameo 

Arriving fifteen years after Tron: Legacy, Joachim Rønning's Tron: Ares places more attention and focus on mesmerizing audiences with visual spectacle. Sadly, it suffers from a contrived, heavy-handed plot that fails to explore deeper themes of AI and identity, although it tries frantically to be seen as such. Starring Jared Leto in a desperate attempt to establish his own franchise, the film is ultimately a downgrade from its predecessors with a simplistic story and shallow exploration of its subject matter. The sci-fi action flop debuts on 4K Ultra HD with a stunningly beautiful, reference-quality Dolby Vision HDR presentation and an outstanding, demo-worthy Dolby Atmos soundtrack. With a disappointingly small collection of supplements, the overall UHD package is only Worth a Look for those curious about the AV quality.

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