TRON: Ares (2025) Disney/Sci-Fi-Action RT: 119 minutes Rated PG-13 (violence/action) Director: Joachim Ronning Screenplay: Jesse Wigutow Music: Nine Inch Nails Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth Release date: October 10, 2025 (US) Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges, Cameron Monaghan, Erin Desjardins, Selene Yun.
Rating: *** ½
I’m probably going to face a lot of blowback for what I’m about to say, but such is the life of a film critic. Here it goes. TRON: Ares is the best TRON movie yet! Yes, I even like it better than the original. I’ll give you all a moment to wrap your minds around this statement.
It’s hard to believe now, but the original TRON was not a huge hit when it came out in 1982, the height of the video game craze. It made its budget back, but like many other movies that summer, it was beaten soundly by E.T. It did, however, become a cult favorite over the years. Nearly 30 years later, we got TRON: Legacy (2010), a decent sequel that recaptured almost all of the magic. It cost ten times as much to make and like its predecessor, was only a modest success. Now, 15 years later, Disney returns to The Grid in TRON: Ares, a visually stunning and intelligent sci-fi-actioner that moves the action from virtual reality to our reality. It’s every bit as cool as it sounds.
Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) plays Ares, the newest Master Controller in the Grid. He’s a super-intelligent program created by Julian Dillinger (Peters, X-Men: Days of Future Past), the grandson of David Warner’s antagonist in the first film. He’s found a way to bring digital constructs like Ares into the real world. Like any bad guy you can name, he wants to sell this new technology to the military. He pitches Ares as the perfect soldier. He obeys every command without question, he doesn’t need to eat or sleep and he’s fully expendable as the user can simply create another Ares. The problem is these digital constructs disintegrate after only 29 minutes. Of course, Julian withholds that crucial bit of info.
Meanwhile, the new CEO of ENCOM, Eve Kim (Lee, Past Lives), has just found the “Permanence Code” while going through Kevin Flynn’s old computer files. It’s what’s needed to fix the problem with Dillinger’s tech. Naturally, he’d like to get his hands on it and doesn’t care how he gets it. He sends Ares and his second-in-command Athena (Smith, Queen & Slim) to take it from Eve. This is when we get to see the two drive light cycles in the real world. It’s quite a sight to behold.
Now here’s where TRON: Ares takes things to the next level. Ares starts to become self-aware. He starts to question his existence as a program. He starts to question his commands from his creator. Then he makes a unilateral decision to defect into the real world to protect Eve. This does not make Dillinger happy.
I’m hearing a lot of hate directed towards Jared Leto and I’d like to address that briefly. Although he’s made some unfortunate choices (e.g. Alexander, Suicide Squad, Morbius), I don’t think he’s all that bad an actor. He’s done great work in films like American Psycho (2000), Chapter 27 (2007) and Dallas Buyers Club (2013) for which he won Best Supporting Actor. He doesn’t do too badly in TRON: Ares. He essentially plays a character reminiscent of other misunderstood beings like Starman, Pinocchio, Roy Batty and Frankenstein’s monster. A quote from the Mary Shelley novel factors into the proceedings. He wants to understand being human. He learns about things like feelings and empathy. Is his performance Oscar worthy? No. Is it convincing? For the most part, yes.
Greta Lee is very good as Eve, an obvious reference to the Biblical character who lived in Paradise until she got herself kicked out along with her mate. In direct contrast, she hopes to create a paradise on earth with the Permanence Code. Unlike Dillinger, she intends to use it altruistically to cure diseases and feed the hungry. Also, she’s trying to live up to her late sister’s name. She feels inferior because while she was creating new games, the sister was working to build a utopia. She may have saved the company, but sis could have saved the world.
Evan Peters hams it up to the skies as the bad guy with a God complex. He wants it all. He wants to be in charge of it all. He basically has no conscience. In other words, he’s a chip off the old block. His own mother (Anderson, The X-Files), the company’s former CEO, keeps trying to rein him in to no avail. No surprise, Jeff Bridges makes an appearance as Kevin Flynn, now an Obi-Wan type who dispenses wisdom in the cyberworld. In one of the film’s coolest bits, Ares visits the Grid as it looked in the original TRON. It’s a nice callback that looks surprisingly clean and seamless.
The real star of TRON: Ares is the special effects. All I can say is “WOW!” CGI has rarely looked as awesome as it does here. There’s are a couple of bravura action scenes set in the real world, one involving light cycles zipping along the highway and another where a huge Recognizer is piloted through city streets destroying property and sending people running. I was in total awe! This NEVER happens with me. TRON: Ares pulsates with neon-lit life. It’s bolstered by an great techno score by Nine Inch Nails.
I like how director Joachim Ronning (Kon-Tiki) doesn’t shy away from tackling heavy themes like humanity and the dangers of AI running amok. In some ways, it’s like the first two Terminator movies. The job he does with TRON: Ares makes you forgive him for sinking the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise with the lame Dead Men Tell No Tales.
I highly recommend TRON: Ares. It’s both smart and exciting. It serves up equal amounts of action and food for thought. In fact, it might take more than a single viewing to take it all in. I’m seriously considering seeing it again in 3D. It’s that great!
