TRON: Ares — Review
Source: Disney
More than a decade after Joseph Kosinski’s TRON: Legacy reinvigorated the franchise with neon spectacle and a Daft Punk score, Joachim Rønning takes the reins and brings us back into the Grid with TRON: Ares. This sequel is refreshing in the sense that it’s the rare follow-up that doesn’t succumb to nostalgia bait, keeping fan service and references to its predecessors to a minimum. Instead of rehashing familiar territory, TRON: Ares aims to update the franchise for the AI age. Unfortunately, the very screenplay that strives to do something fresh and different is also the film’s downfall. Despite its ambitions, the film ultimately feels more synthetic than inspired. Any attempts at exploring themes of sentience and digital autonomy feel frustratingly surface-level for a film of this caliber.
TRON: Ares suffers from a story and characters that feel both lifeless and mundane. One could argue that the characters are intentionally lifeless, seeing as some of them are programs rather than people. The film follows Ares (Jared Leto), a program created by Julian Dillinger, CEO of Dillinger Enterprises (Evan Peters), as he’s sent from the digital realm into the real world. Leto brings an eerie stoicism to the role, but the script fails to give him a compelling arc. Even the human characters lack depth and remain one-dimensional. Greta Lee stars as ENCOM CEO Eve Kim, and while she adds a few fleeting moments of warmth and empathy, the emotional beats fall flat.
Source: Disney
The cast tries their best with the material, but the script undermines them at every turn. Attempts at humor never quite land, emotional beats are sparse and ineffective, and the dialogue alternates between hollow and painfully cheesy. The film’s pacing doesn’t do it any favors either. For too much of its runtime, the story feels aimless, and by the time we arrive at the film’s conclusion, there hasn’t been enough emotional build-up for it to stick the landing.
The technical aspects are where TRON: Ares shines. The film looks and sounds spectacular thanks to impeccable sound design, stunning cinematography, and glossy production design. The biggest highlight is Nine Inch Nails’ infectious electronic score, which will likely be the one element universally praised regardless of how audiences feel about the film itself. Perhaps this movie would have been better off as a two-hour Nine Inch Nails music video instead.
In the end, TRON: Ares is all style and no substance, a sleek, hollow vessel gliding through a digital void. The film is simultaneously visually dazzling and emotionally vacant, squandering the potential of its timely premise. It’s gorgeous to look at and thrilling to listen to, but difficult to feel. It failed to evoke any emotion, excitement, or even mild amusement; the only thing it made me feel was an unshakeable sense of boredom.
TRON: Ares hits theaters on October 9, 2025.
