Film reviews: Tron Ares is a blend of technology and retro-futurism
Jared Leto in Tron: Ares
- Tron: Ares
- ★★★★☆
- Cinematic release
From alien invasions and nuclear holocausts to climate change, Hollywood has long feasted on the prospect of humanity’s imminent extinction.
The latest existential threat is that of the impending Artificial Intelligence supremacy, in which sentient machines will decide that the world is better off without all the humans and their pesky feelings cluttering up the planet.
opens with Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) developing the digitally-generated Ares (Jared Leto), an ‘ultimate soldier’ with only one flaw: his coding only gives him 29 minutes of ‘life’ every time he migrates from the digital world into reality.
Meanwhile, the brilliant Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has developed a ‘permanence code’ for her own tech behemoth, Eneom. Under pressure from his shareholders to deliver a fully functioning weapon to the military, Dillinger unleashes Ares, ordering it to track down Eve and secure the permanence code.
But has Dillinger designed a weapon that’s more intelligent than its creator?
Joachim Rønning’s techno-thriller opens by asking interesting questions about AI and its relationship to its human designers, but the main plot, as Ares relentlessly pursues Eve, has more in common with the early Terminator movies than Tron (1982) and its sequel Tron: Legacy (2010), even if the original does get a very charming homage as Ares embarks on a deep-dive into the digital archives in search of the mysterious Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges).
Indeed, Darren Gilford’s production design is an eye-popping blend of cutting-edge technology and retro-futurism throughout, and fans of extended chase sequences featuring all manner of souped-up machines will certainly get their money’s worth.
Jared Leto is more convincing as the dead-eyed digital creation that he is when Ares begins to experience feelings and empathy, with Greta Lee providing effective support as the dynamic genius whose invention just might save the world from itself.
- A House of Dynamite
- ★★★★☆
- Cinematic release
opens with an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from the Pacific at the United States, a threat that causes a host of agencies to leap into action to deflect and / or obliterate the incoming warhead, and – just as importantly – decide how to respond to this unprovoked attack.
From a White House bunker, Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) is one of the first to realise that (a) the missile is definitely going to detonate, causing millions of deaths, and (b) the authorities have no idea of who launched it.
Kathryn Bigelow’s drama opens like many thrillers you’ve seen before, but here, there’s no fly-boy heroes swooping in to save the day. Instead, we get to see the very human fragilities of those charged with defending their country, among them the President (Idris Elba), the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris) and a National Security Adviser (Gabriel Basso).
A strong ensemble, an unusual narrative structure and Bigelow’s unsentimental direction combine to deliver a nerve-shredding psychological thriller.
- I Swear
- ★★★★★
- Cinematic release
Opening with an MBE recipient bawling expletives at the Queen, is an idiosyncratic biopic of Scotsman John Davidson (Robert Aramayo), whose foul-mouthed outbursts ruined his life when they first began in the early 1980s, when John, growing up in Glasgow, and otherwise a well-behaved, diligent schoolboy, was still his early teens.
Written and directed by Kirk Jones, the film details John’s harrowing experience of Tourette’s syndrome, a condition that was barely recognised at the time, and follows him as he attempts to make his way through life, insulting anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path.
The frequent outbursts are tragi-comic, as are John’s haphazard ways of coming to terms with his neurological disorder, and while a strong supporting cast includes Shirley Henderson as John’s long-suffering mother and Peter Mullan as a community worker who takes John under his wing, Robert Aramayo dominates proceedings with a stunning performance – all verbal eruptions, physical tics and haunting self-awareness – that brilliantly captures the horror of being sabotaged by your own mind.
