Film Review: 'TRON: Ares' Is A Sci-Fi Spectacle, Despite Thin Storyline
The TRON films have held up exceptionally well over the last forty years. Even with its outdated effects (groundbreaking at the time), the first TRON film tackled the idea of an artificial intelligence gaining knowledge to take over mankind, influenced by a wealthy, power-hungry businessman who was intent on crushing the competition in his field, even if it meant dispensing with humanity in the process. The personification and explanation of a computer system's inner workings remain mesmerizing. Its sequel, 2010’s TRON: Legacy, held up even better upon a rewatch - it is beautiful to look at, and while the story is not overtly complex or in the realm of elevated like, say, Dune, it’s an entertaining thrill ride through a world written in bits and code.
TRON: Ares is filmed in a way that legacy sequels like this should be. Yes, the dialogue isn’t Shakespeare. Yes, the storyline is paper-thin. But it’s fun. Movies like this need to be fun. It is visually stunning, well-directed by Joachim Rønning, and it has the best special effects work I’ve seen in a movie all year. The phrase “see it on the biggest screen possible” has become somewhat of a cliché, a saying implemented in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage people to return to movie theaters. But here, it’s a statement that rings true. Not even the most state-of-the-art sound system can replicate the feeling of seeing a film like Tron: ARES on a larger-than-life IMAX screen, the seats rattling to life as a Recognizer enters the real world.
The future of the two biggest tech companies in the world - ENCOM and Dillinger Systems - is at stake. ENCOM is now run by Eve Kim (Greta Lee), who believes that the future of Artificial Intelligence is one that could help save humanity - solve climate problems, feed those who are hungry, and help those in need. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the grandson of former Dillinger Systems CEO Ed Dillinger, believes that A.I. should be weaponized, used as a supersoldier in battle to the highest bidder.
Dillinger has crafted Ares (Jared Leto), a program that is eons above the intelligence of those living on the Grid (as in both previous Tron movies, we cut between the Grid and reality to see how these two worlds interact with one another). Ares can be generated by lasers and pulled from the grid at the push of a button, where he can fight any battle necessary. Unfortunately, anything pulled into reality from Dillinger’s new system can only last a little under a half hour - it then disintegrates, painfully “derezzing” any programs and returning them to the bit-sized world.
Both ENCOM and Dillinger, however, have the same objective - locate a line of code written by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in the 1980s dubbed “The Permanence Code”. This would make anything generated by their technologies permanent and stable in the real world. Whoever controls the permanence code controls the future, goes a line in the film. Kim goes off-grid, evading any kind of technology, bringing along her friend Seth Flores (Arturo Castro), so that they stay out of the eyes of Dillinger, who is hard at work trying to hack into ENCOM’s system to steal the code. Through the use of Ares’ super-intelligent capabilities, Dillinger finds out her plan. Chaos ensues that ends up bringing Ares - and a whole lot of other programs - into the real world.
Despite a thin plot, TRON: Ares is at its best when it plays with the visuals and soundscapes. There is a stunning sequence about midway through the film that uses nostalgia in a way that doesn’t feel like nostalgia bait; it is purposeful and an immersive section of the movie. The subwoofer-testing soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails adds another layer to the madness, effectively utilized in some of the biggest action sequences in the film to a thrilling effect.
TRON is not a series that is for everybody. All films in the series have done moderately well at the box office, but nothing mind-numbingly record-breaking. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that each film in this series ends up being more timely than the last, reflecting the latest ideas of a generation’s technological advances and what it might look like. Each movie is always ahead of the curve in terms of what technology is able to produce for humanity, and TRON: Ares entertainingly continues this tradition. End of line.
TRON: Ares is now playing in theaters everywhere.
Release Date: October 10th, 2025
Rated: PG-13 (for violence and action)
Running Time: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Directed by: Joachim Rønning
Written by: Jesse Wigutow
Story by: David DiGilio, Jesse Wigutow
Produced by: Sean Bailey, Jared Leto, Emma Ludbrook, Jeffrey Silver, Steven Lisberger, Justin Springer
Starring: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges
