{"id":13207,"date":"2025-10-10T23:05:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T03:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13207"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:54:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:54:44","slug":"tron-ares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/10\/10\/tron-ares\/","title":{"rendered":"TRON: Ares"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"TRON: Ares<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 119 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violence\/action)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joachim Ronning\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jesse Wigutow\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nine Inch Nails\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 10, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges, Cameron Monaghan, Erin Desjardins, Selene Yun.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

I\u2019m probably going to face a lot of blowback for what I\u2019m about to say, but such is the life of a film critic. Here it goes. TRON: Ares<\/strong> is the best TRON movie yet! Yes, I even like it better than the original. I\u2019ll give you all a moment to wrap your minds around this statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s 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<\/strong>, a visually stunning and intelligent sci-fi-actioner that moves the action from virtual reality to our reality. It\u2019s every bit as cool as it sounds.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) plays Ares, the newest Master Controller in the Grid. He\u2019s a super-intelligent program created by Julian Dillinger (Peters, X-Men: Days of Future Past), the grandson of David Warner\u2019s antagonist in the first film. He\u2019s 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\u2019t need to eat or sleep and he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, the new CEO of ENCOM, Eve Kim (Lee, Past Lives), has just found the \u201cPermanence Code\u201d while going through Kevin Flynn\u2019s old computer files. It\u2019s what\u2019s needed to fix the problem with Dillinger\u2019s tech. Naturally, he\u2019d like to get his hands on it and doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s quite a sight to behold.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now here\u2019s where TRON: Ares<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m hearing a lot of hate directed towards Jared Leto and I\u2019d like to address that briefly. Although he\u2019s made some unfortunate choices (e.g. Alexander, Suicide Squad, Morbius), I don\u2019t think he\u2019s all that bad an actor. He\u2019s 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\u2019t do too badly in TRON: Ares<\/strong>. He essentially plays a character reminiscent of other misunderstood beings like Starman, Pinocchio, Roy Batty and Frankenstein\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Greta 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\u2019s trying to live up to her late sister\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Evan 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\u2019s a chip off the old block. His own mother (Anderson, The X-Files), the company\u2019s 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\u2019s coolest bits, Ares visits the Grid as it looked in the original TRON. It\u2019s a nice callback that looks surprisingly clean and seamless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The real star of TRON: Ares<\/strong> is the special effects. All I can say is \u201cWOW!\u201d CGI has rarely looked as awesome as it does here. There\u2019s 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<\/strong> pulsates with neon-lit life. It\u2019s bolstered by an great techno score by Nine Inch Nails.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like how director Joachim Ronning (Kon-Tiki) doesn\u2019t shy away from tackling heavy themes like humanity and the dangers of AI running amok. In some ways, it\u2019s like the first two Terminator movies. The job he does with TRON: Ares<\/strong> makes you forgive him for sinking the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise with the lame Dead Men Tell No Tales.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I highly recommend TRON: Ares<\/strong>. It\u2019s 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\u2019m seriously considering seeing it again in 3D. It\u2019s that great!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TRON: Ares (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 119 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violence\/action)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joachim Ronning\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jesse Wigutow\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nine Inch Nails\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 10, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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: *** \u00bd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TRON-Ares-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13210,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions\/13210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}