Tron: Ares Movie Review: In the digital realm where code meets chaos and images pulse with purpose, the Tron franchise has always been a beacon of visual daring. From the groundbreaking visuals of Tron in 1982 to the electronic excess of Tron: Legacy in 2010 these films have asked us to cross the bridge between human imagination and technology’s wonders. Fifteen years after Sam Flynn’s tumble into the Grid Tron: Ares changes the game: instead of users accessing the program a rogue AI emerges in our world. Directed by Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) and written by Jesse Wigutow this third installment stars Jared Leto as Ares, an advanced security software tasked with a corporate espionage mission. With Jeff Bridges back as the enigmatic Kevin Flynn and Greta Lee and Evan Peters in supporting roles the film promises a collision of realities. But does it kill the franchise or just reboot it into irrelevance? With AI in every algorithm it seems like good timing – but the execution falls short.
The premise of Tron: Ares is a great inverse, one that could have explored the existential horror of artificial intelligence bleeding into meat space. Ares, a humanoid form that’s equal parts algorithm and rockstar, is built by a mysterious tech mogul (Evan Peters) to retrieve a quantum algorithm from the ENCOM archives. This code, hidden in the remnants of Flynn’s abandoned arcade, holds the key to unlimited computing power – or depending on how you look at it, the end of humanity. As Ares navigates the analog mess of our world, he deals with free will, identity and the intoxicating pull of 80s synthpop (cue Depeche Mode deep cuts). Meanwhile, a rival CEO (Greta Lee) is racing to get her hands on the same code, her motivations tangled up in grief and corporate one-upmanship. Flynn (Bridges) appears in holographic cameos, dispensing wisdom like a digital Obi-Wan, while the story teases a connection to the Legacy threads that were left unresolved.
From a visual standpoint, Tron: Ares is a design triumph, a surreal experience that should be seen on the biggest screen possible – preferably in IMAX 3D where the light cycles are like laser crafted comets. Rønning and director of photography Claudio Miranda have crafted scenes that reference the original’s simplicity while incorporating modern CGI: virtual environments merge with real world landscapes, Los Angeles becomes the Grid where holographic battles erupt on crowded roads. It’s non stop, like an orchestra of disc tosses, bike chases and identity disc battles that pulse with energy. A great sequence has Ares switching between digital and physical form as he chases through a stormy cityscape. This is like a giant Space Invaders battle, with booming bass and intricate light bursts. This is the heart of the franchise: humanity vs technology, in beautiful shapes that still feel new after 40 years.
For each beam of light, there’s a void that sucks up the energy around it. The screenplay is bogged down by too much exposition and long philosophical discussions, more corporate speak than counterculture. Tron was about a hacker vs a tyrant, Legacy was about a father son story with themes of isolation and anxiety, Ares is a calculated effort to make the franchise coherent. The human characters are cardboard cutouts—Peters’ villain a plain typing enthusiast, Lee’s corporate leader an explanation machine not a character—so the emotional stakes are as dead as a software application. The independence of AI and the hubris of humanity are discussed in clunky monologues, like American Psycho via TED Talk, but never really explored. It seems like the movie was so busy paying homage to its influences (the recreation of Flynn’s office is a self referential nod to reused assets) it forgot to add actual emotional depth.
Jared Leto is a method chameleon and Ares is his canvas. He’s lithe and predatory, intense and detached. He’s a rock god in digital form, all skin tight suits and arched smirks. He gets the quiet menace of a being discovering desire amidst directives. But Leto’s unlikability – a holdover from his polarizing personas – undermines any sympathy and turns Ares into a charming void rather than a tragic mirror to our silicon ambitions. Bridges is great, bless him, and steals every scene he’s in with that avuncular twinkle. He’s a reminder of the franchise’s humanistic roots. The rest of the cast is solid – Greta Lee is great in her underwritten role – but the script strands them in a web of contrived conflicts that prioritize spectacle over substance.
What really sets Tron: Ares apart from generic sci-fi is the sound. Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross create a score that’s a partner not background music: industrial beats hammer the Grid into chaos, synths swirl around Ares like a dream, like the best of Daft Punk’s Legacy but raw and intense. The tracks drop in with precision, making chases physical and quiet moments eerie daydreams. In a film that’s more music album than visual art this is the heart of the film – a reminder that Tron has always been a sensory experience where sound design blurs the line between watching and experiencing.
Tron: Ares is 105 minutes long but is hamstrung by its own mechanics and becomes a visually and aurally impressive but narratively constrained product. It’s the franchise in a nutshell, but not the deeper philosophy; it plays it safe rather than bold. For fans who have been waiting for a traffic jam for years it’s a good trip down memory lane – energetic, visually cool and good for multiple viewings at high volume. But as a standalone or a metaphor for AI, it crashes, prioritizing surface aesthetics over substance. Ultimately, Tron: Ares is not an app that can be run independently; it’s better as a lightcycle ride for people already in the grid. Maybe the real upgrade is the sequel hinted at by Flynn, because this one, despite its charm, feels like a system that needs a reboot.