Tron Ares (dir. by Joachim Rønning)

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Leonard Wilson

Tron Ares is this year’s Spawn for me.

For those unaware (and I really should write about Spawn one of these days), I saw Spawn with a friend when it first came out. I loved it, walking out the theatre and raving about it. Over pizza, my friend explained in great detail the many ways it actually sucked. Even Michael Jai White hated it.

With my expectations being lower than they ever were for anything, Tron Ares surprised me. I leaned forward in my seat. I chuckled, and bobbed my head to the music and stayed until all of the credits were done. It could have done many things much better than it chose to do, but given the distance in time between Legacy and the choices for where the story could go, it’s not the worst film in the world. It’s not like Tron as an entire franchise was ever that deep with its storytelling (with the clear exception being Tron Uprising, of course). It brings some new elements to the overall tale that I didn’t even consider. Imagine what the writers could have done if they started working on this right after Legacy. With 15 years gone, it’s hard to get actors together for a project.

Both Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are Executive Producers on Tron Ares. They threw money at this. They even have cameos in the film. At best, Tron Ares is the coolest looking Nine Inch Nails feature length music video to have ever existed since perhaps The Perfect Drug. The music compliments the film exactly as Daft Punk’s did for Legacy and Wendy Carlos’ did for the original. The sights are dazzling and the sounds are sharp. The music isn’t so much the subtle Reznor/Ross we’ve had with Bones and All, or the weirdness of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. This is loud and kind of booming. We finally get light cycles in the real world (which isn’t giving anything away that wasn’t already in the trailers). In that sense, it’s a win on a few levels.

If it’s a deep story with characters you’ll root for and possibly worry about, however, Tron Ares is not that film. You’re probably better off with either One Battle After Another or Weapons, both of which are equally good. I will say that what Tron Ares lacks in story, it does make up for with some generous fan service moments. There are tons of references to both Tron and Legacy if you pay attention, even if the story itself veers off tangent. I felt it handled this so much better than Legacy ever did. You can’t say the other films weren’t considered in making this. It’s not that far from another Disney project, F/X’ and Hulu’s Alien: Earth in some ways.

In the years after Tron Legacy, there have been many changes. Encom encounters some competition in the form of the Dillinger Corporation, lead by genius Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters, X-Men: Days of Future Past) and his mother, Elizabeth (Gillian Anderson, The X-Files). Kevin Flynn’s (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski) dream of crossing the digital frontier has become a race to see who can make their digital assets a reality. Dillinger’s newest, greatest program is Ares (Jared Leto, Morbius), who is fully versed in various fighting techniques and security protocols. What does this mean for life in The Grid, the universe inside the machine? Can Ares be trusted, or controlled, for that matter?

Acting-wise, everyone has a job to do. To his credit, Leto is not bad in this. It’s not robotic, but it’s not quite the second coming of Jordan Catalano (if anyone even recalls who that is). It’s not like the script, written by Jesse Wigutow (Daredevil: Born Again) and David DiGilio (The Terminal List & The Terminal List: Dark Wolf) calls for his character to have a great depth of emotion. Greta Lee (Past Lives) and Evan Peters do most of the work, along with Jodie Turner-Smith, who seemed to have the most fun. Anderson also does a good job, but again, there’s not a whole lot to work with.

Tron Ares hovers right above the Incident mark for me. It could have been so much better than what it was, and who knows how long the visuals will stay with me. Yet, just like the films before it, it’s rescued by a score that may be remembered more than the film itself in the years to come. I don’t know if I’d go back out to see this, but would happily catch it once it comes to digital.

Film Review: Murder Mystery 2 (dir by Jeremy Garelick)

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Four years ago, Nick and Audrey Spitz (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston) solved a convoluted murder mystery and became minor celebrities. Nick quit his job with the NYPD. Audrey quit her job as a hairdresser. They opened up their own private detective agency.

Unfortunately, as a narrator explains to us at the start of Murder Mystery 2, things haven’t gone smoothly for Nick and Audrey. They’ve struggled to establish themselves as detectives. In fact, Nick doesn’t even have a P.I. license because he has yet to pass the exam and he balks at having to actually study criminology. While Audrey tries to convince him to, at the very least, read a book on kidnapping, Nick is more concerned with coming up with cute business cards. His big idea to combine the traditional business card with floss and a razor. Personally, I wouldn’t want to use a business card to take care of my teeth but maybe that’s just me.

When Nick and Audrey are invited to an exclusive wedding, it’s a chance for them to reacquaint themselves with Vikram (Adeel Akhatar) and Colonel Ulenga (John Kani), both of whom were featured in the first Murder Mystery. When Vikram is kidnapped and one of his bodyguards is murdered, it’s a chance to Nick and Audrey to once again prove that they’re capable of solving a crime. When former MI6 agent-turned-security consultant Captain Miller (Mark Strong) literally emerges from the sea and takes over the investigation, it’s a chance to Audrey to meet one of her heroes and for Nick to get a little jealous. And when the action moves to France, it’s an excuse for the film’s cast and crew to hang out in Paris for a few weeks.

I enjoyed the first Murder Mystery, which was a surprisingly sweet and funny comedy that showcased Sandler and Aniston’s chemistry while also make good use of Sandler in one of his more likable comedic roles. Like all Sandler characters, Nick may be something of a manchild but he’s not deliberately destructive. He means well. The first film’s mystery was enjoyably convoluted and a lot of the humor came from just how out of place Sandler and Aniston were in an Agatha Christie-style whodunit.

Murder Mystery 2, unfortunately, it not quite as much fun as the first film. A huge part of the problem is that Nick and Audrey are no longer amateur detectives who are both shocked and secretly thrilled to be solving an actual murder. Now, they’re professional (if somewhat incompetent) detectives. The first film had a sweet subtext about Sandler trying to prove that he was as good a detective as thought he was. He had something to prove, to both his wife and to himself. In the second film, the emphasis is more on action than humor. Suddenly, Sandler and Aniston are engaging in high-speed car chases and battles atop the Eiffel Tower. It all feels a bit mechanical and, much as with his direction of The Binge, director Jeremy Garelick often seems to just be going through the motions.

On the plus side, Sandler and Aniston still have their chemistry and both of them still know how to make an otherwise corny joke work. Jennifer Aniston gets to wear a lot of really pretty outfits and Adam Sandler gets a memorable scene where he tries to convince himself that he can jump over a moat. There’s a genuinely funny moment towards the end of the film, when a character unrelated to the mystery randomly shows up and interrupts a tense showdown. Even though I wish the film had done a bit more with character, Mark Strong also seems to be having parodying his own image. There are moments of Murder Mystery 2 that are actually pretty amusing, though I think chuckled more than I actually laughed out loud. Ultimately, though, Murder Mystery 2 is rather forgettable.

Here’s The Trailer for Queen & Slim!

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Queen & Slim is a film that’s been getting of positive buzz. Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith play a couple on a first date whose lives are turned upside down when they’re pulled over by a racist cop. The cop ends up dead and Kaluua and Turner-Smith end up on the run.

And here’s the just-released trailer!

Queen & Slim will be released in November, just in time for Oscar season. Judging from the trailer, this film is either going to be very powerful or way too heavy-handed. Daniel Kaluuya is probably one of the most interesting actors around right now so I’m always happy to see anything he’s involved with.