Highly-anticipated sci-fi movie 15 years in the making called 'the worst film of the year'

A major science-fiction blockbuster from Disney has been branded one of the worst films of the year in scathing reviews.

Tron: Ares is the latest entry in the long-running franchise that kicked off with 1982’s groundbreaking original film before returning back in 2010 for the long-awaited sequel, Tron: Legacy.

15 years later, the story finally continues with Jared Leto and Greta Lee leading the action flick, which follows the computerised Programs invading the real world for the very first time.

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Helmed by director Joachim Rønning, the filmmaker behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and last year’s Young Woman and the City, critics have praised the film’s visuals and soundtrack, but very little else.

Hitting cinemas this Friday, 10th October, the critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes currently stands at a disappointing 53 percent.

The Independent went so far as to call it “the worst film of the year and a new low for Disney” in their brutal one-star review.

Critic Clarisse Loughrey went on to describe Tron: Ares as “an ethically dubious, horribly written nadir in franchise slop.

“Tron: Ares has the visual flair of a mobile game and a thematic depth that makes the 1982 original’s premise – Jeff Bridges gets sucked into a computer – feel like it was written by philosophers.”

The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin concurred in his own one-star write-up, penning: “Tron: Ares is so bad it makes you wish AI would hurry up and destroy Hollywood.

“A shambolic film populated by some of the most aggressively charmless characters ever seen in a blockbuster.”

And The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw also branded it with a one-star review, noting: “Even Gillian Anderson can’t slap this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi into shape.”

He went on to describe Leto’s lead performance as “unremittingly, unrelentingly awful”, and concluded “there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest anywhere.

“This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.”

Slant Magazine’s Jake Cole summed it up on Letterboxd: “1.5 stars for a new [Nine Inch Nails] score, 0 for the dullest entry yet in a franchise that is mostly fondly remembered as sort of a vibe over anything that actually happens in these movies.”

Not all reviews have been so damning, however, with Empire giving Tron: Ares a more generous three-star review.

They were also impressed with NIN duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, commenting: “The real MVPs, however, are Nine Inch Nails, whose staggeringly brilliant soundtrack dominates the entire proceedings.

“Not since, well, the last Tron film, with Daft Punk’s masterfully sweeping orchestral-bleeps mashup, has a film score elevated its material so significantly, so impressively.”

Will you be giving Tron: Ares a miss after these not-so-stellar reviews, or are you willing to give the neon-splashed sci-fi saga the benefit of the doubt?

Tron: Ares is in UK cinemas from Friday, 10th October.