Review: ‘Tron: Ares’ Suffers Missteps, but Still Holds the Series’ Eccentric Charm

“Tron” has always been one of Disney’s strangest and most inconsistent franchises—and I’ll admit, I’m defenseless against it. I love its world, its glowing sincerity, its impossible earnestness. The 1982 original was a visual milestone but narratively confusing and a Box Office dud. Still, it somehow spawned a mini-franchise: “Tron: Legacy” in 2010, and now, fifteen years later, “Tron: Ares.”

That 2010 film, though often dismissed at the time, has aged remarkably well. “Tron: Legacy” basically predicted the next decade and a half of corporate “legacy sequels,” but it did so with a cohesive visual identity and genuine emotional weight. It also announced Joseph Kosinski as a filmmaker with an impeccable sense of scale and style—qualities he’s since expanded through the magical “Top Gun: Maverick” and this year’s exhilarating “F1.”

Sleek, Idea-Driven Sci Fi

“Tron: Ares” doesn’t so much build on that legacy as it does loop endlessly within it.

Director Joachim Rønning (“Pirates 5,” “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”) and screenwriter Jesse Wigutow attempt to update “Tron’s” digital mythology for the AI era, positioning “Ares” as a sleek, idea-driven sci-fi epic about creation, autonomy, and identity. In theory, it’s “Frankenstein” meets “Paradise Lost” with circuitry. In practice, it’s a movie about a being breaking free from programming that feels completely programmed itself.

Ares (Jared Leto) is a self-aware program styled as a digital messiah—part Milton’s Satan, part Frankenstein’s monster. He literally reads those books as he begins to question his purpose, but the film never digs into their ideas. Instead, it name-drops literature and AI ethics like a college freshman hoping you’ll ask about his bookshelf.

Building on AI Anxieties

The film gestures toward real-world AI anxieties but lands on the world’s safest conclusion: “AI could be good or bad.” It’s a romanticized fantasy of a noble machine guided by love, not a genuine meditation on consciousness or technology. For every cool concept, there’s a baffling creative decision to match. “Tron: Ares” is a monkey’s paw of a sequel:

GOOD IDEA: A continuation of “Tron.”

BAD IDEA: Starring Jared Leto.

GOOD IDEA: Soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.

BAD IDEA: Set mostly in the real world.

Set fifteen years after “Legacy,” the film opens with a quick, montage-style recap before launching into a “race against time” plot. Sentient programs have escaped into the real world, and two tech moguls are competing to unlock the “permanence code”—a process that makes digital creations physically real.

Greta Lee plays Eve Kim, a “good billionaire” who wants to use it for healing and renewal, driven by her sister’s death. Opposing her is Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger, an egotistical tech heir trying to weaponize it to impress his powerful mother, played by Gillian Anderson. To win, Julian unleashes Ares, a hyper-evolved AI enforcer who, naturally, develops a conscience and a crush along the way.

Struggles to Blend the Digital and Real World Together

Ares and his ally Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) can exist in the physical world for only 29 minutes before their code deteriorates—a great idea for tension and chase scenes that the movie barely uses. The constant cutting between digital and real worlds undermines what makes “Tron” unique. The moment light cycles start racing down actual city streets, even when the action is crisp, the magic flickers out.

Rønning delivers the expected spectacle: glowing cityscapes, high-octane action, and a pounding Nine Inch Nails score that keeps the pulse alive even when the story flatlines. There are moments of genuine excitement—color-coded digital armies clashing in red and blue, sequences textured to echo the early “Tron” aesthetic—but they’re fleeting.

The standout moment is a brief detour into the blocky, low-res world of the 1982 original—funny, self-aware, and, ironically, the only scene that feels truly alive. Nostalgia and polish substitute for originality. “Ares” looks fantastic but feels hollow, more like retro fan service than the forward-thinking science fiction that the other two films at least attempt. And while the digital world glows, the real-world settings are disappointingly flat—just another glass-and-concrete skyscraper after another.

Some Acting Missteps

Jared Leto’s Ares is a bit of a black hole for charisma—convincing as a machine, less so as a man. His arc from weapon to would-be lover is handled with all the warmth of a firmware update. Greta Lee, as always, is luminous, bringing humanity to an underwritten role. Evan Peters plays his villain so broad he could be auditioning for a different movie entirely, while Jodie Turner-Smith makes the most of her limited screen time. Gillian Anderson lends gravitas but not much else.

The movie badly misses Jeff Bridges’ warmth and charm. What “Legacy” understood—that sincerity and emotion could coexist with visual bombast—”Ares” forgets entirely. Attempts at humor land with a thud, relying on tired ’80s nostalgia and reheated slapstick.

“Tron: Ares” is dazzling but dumb—technically impressive, narratively hollow, and emotionally inert. It continues the franchise’s long tradition of valuing spectacle over substance. Its best scene is a nostalgic callback to the original “Tron,” which says everything about where this series is stuck: looking backward instead of forward.

Yet ‘Tron’ Still Warms Our Hearts

And yet, I can’t quite bring myself to be mad at it. For all its clunky storytelling and half-baked ideas, there’s something weirdly endearing about watching Disney throw this much money at a franchise this eccentric. The ambition, the glow, the synths—they still work on me every time.

So yes, “Ares” tested the limits of my enthusiasm, but it didn’t break it. I’ll still show up for the next one, identity disc in hand, hoping that one day the code compiles just right. “Tron” remains one of Disney’s strangest experiments—and I’m still, happily, defenseless against it.