Review: 'Tron: Ares' is sensory overload, a program without purpose

Disney, 2025.

When Disney released the original "Tron" back in 1982, it wasn't considered a financial success when all things were considered. It was groundbreaking for its special effects, even landing a pair of Oscar nominations for Best Costume and Best Sound, and over time has undeniably become a cult classic.

Disney was so committed to keeping the Tron IP alive, it released a 2010 sequel, "Tron: Legacy," which was a modest box office success, despite a lack of critical enthusiasm (it currently holds a 51% Rotten rating on RottenTomatoes.com). It even opened a Tron roller coaster at its theme parks, further proving that Disney has no intention of moving on from this seemingly promising franchise.

"Tron: Ares" carries on the unfortunate Tron tradition of being visually dazzling without containing even a modicum of soul beneath the hood. With a loud, pulsating, high-octane score by Nine Inch Nails (apparently not just composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but the whole band), it is a nonstop onslaught on the senses...a merciless, relentless attack that may have been worth the punishment, had it been attached to anything remotely resembling human emotion.

Grade: D

In an opening credit sequence full of cobbled-together news flashes, we are caught up on where the Tron Universe has ended up since the events of the last film. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has been lost to The Grid, the world that exists inside a vast computer network and that was the setting of the previous two movies. His company, ENCOM, is now run by Eve (Greta Lee), still grieving the loss of her sister and co-CEO. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), is the CEO of competing company, Dillinger Systems, and the grandson of the first film's villain. Dillinger Systems has its own, higher-tech Grid, that blows away the old one. In a throwaway role, Gillian Anderson plays Julian's mother, Elisabeth Dillinger, included here simply to remind us of Julian's questionable morality, as if we wouldn't be able to figure it out ourselves.

Dillinger Systems has created a way to materialize AI - think of it like a giant 3D Printer that can create anything that exists within a computer. The problem is, they can't get it to molecularly stabilize for more than 30 minutes at a time. Inside the Dillinger Grid, Julian has created a super-intelligent, super-powerful program called Ares (Jared Leto), and he seeks to find the "Permanence Code," a tool that will finally allow his AI creations - and Ares - to exist permanently in the real world.

Leto is perfectly cast as a stiff robot (and I am unabashedly not a big fan of his work to this point). Ares is a cross between Star Trek's Data and Robocop, with a dash of Spock thrown in. It's an odd (and fatal) choice to make the film's central character a being that doesn't understand humanity or human emotion, making his adventure very hard to connect with. 

At least Ares can use the excuse that he's artificial. But he's no more authentic than any of the human characters we meet. Greta Lee - a fine actress - is given nothing to sink her teeth into, and is teamed with Arturo Castro, who plays her comic relief side-kick but isn't particularly funny. The dialogue is hollow, the story thin, and it really makes you wonder what the Tron franchise might have been had someone actually envisioned it as something more than just a CG showcase of lights, lasers and whirrs.

Of course none of this matters. "Tron: Ares" exists as sensory distraction - think of Baby Einstein but for adults. The trailer begs you to "see it on the biggest screen possible" because that's the only thing it has going for it: nonstop visuals mixed with one of the oddest scores you will ever encounter. Tapping into a very 80s, Giorgio Moroder vibe, the music is simultaneously interesting and annoying. If you were to hear a snippet of any one sequence, you may think it's pretty awesome. But taken in a 120-minute blast, it's what I imagine is used on hostages to get them to talk.

Ironically, this movie did not remind me at all of the 1980s, when Tron originated. It was more reminiscent of the mid-90s, when big-budget CG movies were becoming a thing and filmmakers became so enamored in the technology that they often created giant, eye-popping yet soulless spectacles.

The industry is so scared of AI taking over, but "Tron: Ares" couldn't have fared much worse if it had been entirely written and directed by one. It's perhaps a wondrous visual achievement, but what good is that if there isn't anything to anchor it to humanity?

​Grade: D

Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
Run Time: 1 hour 59 minutes.
Rated: PG-13.

Starring: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Gillian Anderson, Arturo Castro, Hasan Minhaj, Jeff Bridges.

Directed by Joachim Ronning ("Young Woman and the Sea," "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales," "Kon-Tiki").

"Tron: Ares" is in theaters everywhere on Friday, October 10th, 2025.