Tron: Ares

The two prior Tron installments were notable for their advancement of film technology, if for no other reason. While neither invented the tech at their center, they were important for popularizing and advancing it. The original's use of CGI was not as extensive as its otherworldly look may imply, but it was far more extensive than any other film at the time. Combined with the use of painstaking backlight animation, it looks like nothing else before or since, and holds up remarkably well today despite being unavoidably dated. Tron: Legacy came out nearly thirty years later, and along with forging its own aesthetic clearly descended from the original's, it made extensive use of digital de-aging to make Clu look like a young Jeff Bridges. The tech was nowhere near ready (I'd argue it still isn't), and will always remain distracting, but I will never fault a movie for taking a swing, especially when it's off to the side enough that its core remains in tact.

What, then, is revolutionary about Tron: Ares? The conceit is neat enough, following from the ending of Legacy: programs in the real world. The visual style is copied wholesale as well, albeit with Ares leaning into an aggressive red-orange palette instead of Legacy's icy cool blues. And...that's it. Sure, it's kind of neat to see light cycles on a city street. But the best parts of the near-constant action all take place in the fantastical world of the Grid. Separated from our world, the invention required to create such set-pieces is exciting, even as it's only slightly riffing on the prior entries. In true legacyquel fashion, they eventually visit the original Grid, which Legacy wisely avoided. To the VFX artists' credit, they pull it off remarkably well. However, inside such a boring plot, it just makes you wish you were watching a more daring film.

The Grid we see is primarily that of Dillinger Industries, a company who's apparently been Encom's biggest competitor for forty years. While it would be unsurprising for Ed Dillinger to form his own company when deposed as Encom CEO in the original, it renders the presence of his son as the top developer at Encom in Legacy quite confusing. This is emblematic of the approach Ares takes to being a sequel: for all its debt to Legacy, it has little interest in the story it told. Sam and Alan and Quorra are only mentioned in passing. The battle between open and closed source is never brought up. The MacGuffin is to be found on the original Encom Grid, despite having no purpose until decades after it was deactivated. Even series namesake Tron is absent.

Instead of being asked to root for an artist whose creation was stolen, or a nepo baby whose privilege allows him to spit in the face of the system and eventually fight for control of his father's company in order to gift its technological advances to the world, we're given an altruistic, female Sam Altman. It's a battle of tech CEOs as they hunt for the "Permanence Code", a bit of digital DNA that will allow programs brought into the real world to persist past their current twenty-nine minute threshold, past which we're treated to a disturbing image of them crumbling into dust with a primal scream locked onto their faces. Dillinger scion and CEO Julian (Evan Peters) wants it for his own financial gain via lucrative military contracts; Encom CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) wants it to make the world a better place through creating food from nothing. Aiding our "hero" is Ares (Jared Leto), the Dillinger version of Tron, whose taste of reality across transfers has given him the desire to become a real boy, and a resentment of his creator's disregard for life in his search for the Fountain of Youth (or was it the Holy Grail? Or Atlantis?).

The resulting conflict is an exhausting chase through a generic American city, too dark and bland to know (or care) how much is real vs. digitally rendered. The occasional bits of action set on the Grid are pretty neat, most notably an early effort involving water a transforming vehicle. But in the real world, it all melts into a boring mix of pretty visuals and CGI chaos, lacking the splendor and creativity that marked the earlier entries.

As the plot snaps into focus, it becomes clear why the marketing was so cagey about it. It's uninspiring and generic, with only some of the series' specifics saving it from complete mediocrity. But the advent of LLMs, and the ethical discussions of AI it's precipitated (despite so few knowing anything about it), cause the story's questions about what it means for a program to desire humanity to ring differently. Screenwriter Jesse Wigutow knows this, too, as Eve's animating idea is that everyone focuses too much on the negatives of AI despite its tremendous possibilities for good. Fair enough, but the movie had the misfortune of releasing only a few weeks after the news of AI "actor" Tilly Norwood made manifest how desperately those bankrolling movies want art to be cheap, regardless whether it compromises the form's humanity, integrity, and power. Even taken on its own, for all the good Ares accomplishes and represents, the devastation and terror wrecked by Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) when granted the tiniest modicum of power and agency is far greater.

In a decision that makes for some super cool visuals but is complete nonsense narratively, things from the Grid obey their own physics. Light bands hang in the air and split cars in two, vehicles can fly that should by all means collapse under their own weight, and no source of power is ever named. That's not to say the first two movies handled all of this flawlessly (although they had more flexibility since they almost exclusively take place on the Grid). But they had a compelling story and characters you were invested in, so you never had the chance (or desire) to dwell on the level of logical adherence.

That's the film's greatest sin: it's characters are complete nothings. There's some backstory involving Eve's younger sister and predecessor Tess (Selene Yun), but it never matters to the plot or seemingly to Eve. Her sidekick is the terminally annoying Seth (Arturo Castro), who approaches everything with a look of "Well, that happened!" and the quips to match. As great as it is to see Gillian Anderson, her role as Julian's mother and former Dillinger CEO, Elizabeth, is solely to tell her son that he sucks. While the vocal majority online was opposed to Leto's involvement even before he was accused of sexual impropriety by nine women, the script's inability to give him anything to work with is far more responsible for his performance landing with a thud. His flatness is in line with that of Turner-Smith, as you'd expect since they're computer programs, not ISOs. He comes alive slightly in his conversation with the elder Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role for a one-scene cameo), not coincidentally in the one moment the story slows down to banter about some basic philosophy. Other than that, director Joachim Rønning fails to lift anyone above the middling screenplay.

The only thing that truly works is the score from Nine Inch Nails, which marks the first time Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross chose to compose under their band's moniker instead of their own names. It's electronic and dark and catchy and pulsing. At times, it's perfectly in sync with the action on screen, giving the action the energy it deserves. But it feels like they're holding back throughout, always about to kick over into overwhelming power, but never finding the right moment to do so. As such, it cannot stand up to their top-tier work, even as it's a great album on its own.

Both of the originals were underappreciated upon release. While they made money, neither were huge successes relative to their budget. They were met with a muted critical response, and only gained their following and cultural canonization over years of build and home video release. But both of them had something to offer that nothing else did at the time, and both captured the moment in their own way. Conversely, Ares is about how we should trust the "right" tech CEOs with tremendous power that can devastate the world because they could also use it for good. That AI will be our savior, not our downfall. And that the problem with tech bros is the "bro" part, not that they're have a god complex. I can barely imagine a less inspiring story in 2025, least of all backed by one of the wealthiest and most morally bankrupt companies in the world.