Walking out of the theater after Tron: Ares, I found myself in an unusual position—defending a film the critics have largely written off. With a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes and a box office performance Disney would rather forget, Joachim Rønning’s third entry in the franchise isn’t winning any awards. But here’s the thing: sometimes a movie doesn’t need to reinvent cinema. Sometimes it just needs to look absolutely incredible while telling a straightforward story about what it means to be human.
And on that front, Tron: Ares delivers in ways that made my $15 ticket feel like a steal.
The Production Design is Genuinely Next-Level
Let’s start with what everyone agrees on—this film is a visual masterpiece. The production design seamlessly blends CGI with practical effects in ways that feel revolutionary for the franchise. Where the 1982 original now feels like a museum piece (let’s be honest, it’s barely watchable by modern standards), and Legacy often felt cold and distant in its digital perfection, Ares finds a sweet spot by bringing the Grid into our world.
The Light Cycle chase through downtown Vancouver is worth the price of admission alone. Watching those iconic vehicles leave trails of glowing plasma through real city streets, cutting between obstacles that are sometimes solid barriers and sometimes lethal laser beams, creates a visceral thrill that previous films could only hint at. The production team built actual Light Cycles for the actors to interact with, and you can feel the difference. There’s weight and presence to everything that happens on screen.
The three distinct Grids—ENCOM’s naturalistic blue environment, Dillinger Systems’ menacing red domain, and most intriguingly, Kevin Flynn’s original 1982 Grid—each have their own visual language. When Ares travels back to where it all started, the film pays homage to the franchise’s roots while demonstrating how far the technology has evolved.
Ares: A Program Learning to Feel
Jared Leto’s performance as Ares has been the film’s most divisive element, and I get why. This isn’t the charismatic, scene-chewing Leto we’ve seen in other roles. Playing a program designed as the ultimate soldier—essentially the Grid’s Master Control with a red-suited aesthetic that signals his allegiance to the Dillinger lineage—he delivers something intentionally restrained and clinical.
The character arc follows Ares as he’s sent from the digital world to retrieve the “Permanence Code,” which would allow programs to exist indefinitely in the real world beyond the 29-minute barrier. But during his repeated brief visits to reality, something changes. He begins to question his expendability, his purpose, his creator’s indifference. Director Rønning described him as Pinocchio, and that fairy tale resonance works better than it should.
Leto plays Ares with the emotional range of someone discovering feelings for the first time—touching a firefly with childlike wonder, sharing a stolen moment over Depeche Mode (a running musical motif throughout the film), slowly recognizing empathy when he sees Eve Kim’s determination to honor her late sister’s work. Critics have called his performance wooden, but that misses the point. This is a being with billions of lines of code learning what it means to want something beyond programming.
The triangular Identity Disc Ares wields—a controversial departure from the franchise’s circular design—becomes a visual metaphor for his difference, his evolution beyond standard programming. It’s superior, aggressive, and ultimately, tragic when he chooses to use it to protect rather than destroy.
Eve Kim and the Human Heart of the Story
Greta Lee brings warmth and intelligence to Eve Kim, ENCOM’s reclusive CEO, and her performance grounds the film’s more fantastical elements. Eve’s driving motivation—discovering the Permanence Code her sister Tess was secretly pursuing before dying of cancer—adds genuine emotional weight to what could have been just another corporate espionage thriller.
The relationship between Eve and Ares becomes the film’s unexpected emotional core. This isn’t a romance, despite what the marketing might suggest. It’s something more interesting: a story about two beings—one losing her humanity to grief, one discovering it for the first time—finding common ground. Their conversations as they race toward ENCOM, where Ares helps Eve realize she’s been chasing the code out of feelings of inadequacy to her humanitarian sister, showcase the film’s few moments of genuine introspection.
Lee plays Eve as someone analytical and observant, focused on world-changing technology while learning to process loss. When she destroys the flash drive containing the Permanence Code rather than let it fall into Julian’s hands, it’s not just a plot point—it’s a woman choosing to let go of her sister’s ghost rather than let it be weaponized.
Julian Dillinger: Legacy of Villainy
Evan Peters brings a manic intensity to Julian Dillinger, grandson of the franchise’s original antagonist Ed Dillinger. His Julian is brilliant, ambitious, and singularly focused on establishing his own legacy, separate from his family’s morally questionable history. Peters researched the role by watching DEF CON conferences and lock-picking videos, channeling the obsessive energy of tech moguls who see human concerns as obstacles to progress.
The relationship with his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) adds layers to Julian’s villainy. Anderson, who runs Dillinger Systems before her son takes over, serves as his moral compass until his actions lead to her death. Her warning about the Dillinger family’s historical moral failings resonates throughout—this isn’t just one bad apple, it’s generational corruption built into the company’s DNA.
Julian’s willingness to kill Eve to extract the Permanence Code from her memory marks his point of no return. When he accepts that risk without hesitation, he becomes irredeemable. The mid-credits scene showing Julian transported to the Game Grid, where he merges with the Sark program, promises an even more formidable antagonist for potential sequels—a hybrid of human ambition and program efficiency.
Athena: The True Antagonist
While critics debate Leto’s performance, there’s unanimous agreement that Jodie Turner-Smith steals the film as Athena, Ares’ second-in-command. Playing a program who cannot break free of her code and cannot understand why anyone would want to, Turner-Smith creates the film’s most compelling character.
Fierce, loyal, and absolutely uncompromising, Athena represents the dark mirror to Ares’ evolution. Where he learns empathy, she doubles down on her programming. Where he questions orders, she interprets “by any means necessary” with lethal precision—leading to the shocking moment when she kills Elisabeth Dillinger, viewing her as merely an obstacle to her directive.
Turner-Smith shaved her eyebrows for the role without director approval, bleaching them first and then removing them entirely because she knew it would make Athena look more severe, more inhuman. It’s the kind of commitment that elevates the character from sidekick to primary threat. Her climactic battle with Ares in ENCOM headquarters delivers the film’s most visceral action sequence.
The moment before she derezzs in the rain, showing a flicker of self-awareness, is one of the film’s most haunting images. For just a second, Athena understands what Ares has been feeling—and then she’s gone.
The Nine Inch Nails Factor
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross taking over the soundtrack from Daft Punk could have been disastrous. Instead, they deliver a pulsating, industrial score that gives Ares its own identity while respecting the franchise’s electronic music heritage. The Nine Inch Nails name allowed them to “play by different rules,” as Reznor explained, bringing a grittier, more aggressive sound that suits the film’s themes of AI rebellion and corporate warfare.
The soundtrack was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award, and tracks like “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” capture the film’s central question: what does it take to be truly alive? The score pounds through the action sequences, supporting the visual spectacle without overwhelming it.
Jeff Bridges and the Flynn Legacy
Jeff Bridges returns as Kevin Flynn, now a digital construct within his original Grid. His scenes are brief but meaningful, serving as the film’s connection to the franchise’s history. Flynn’s Permanence Code—the MacGuffin everyone’s chasing—represents his final gift to the digital world, a way for programs to achieve genuine existence beyond their 29-minute limitation.
The film makes references to Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) from Legacy, explaining that Sam resigned from ENCOM for “personal reasons” fifteen years before the events of Ares. This handwave allows the film to start fresh with Eve’s generation while keeping the door open for their return. The post-credits reveal that Ares has learned of Quorra’s existence and is searching for her and Sam sets up intriguing possibilities.
Notably absent is Cillian Murphy’s Ed Dillinger Jr., who was clearly set up as a villain in Legacy. The filmmakers chose instead to skip a generation to Julian, which allows them to tell a new story while keeping Murphy available for potential future appearances.
The AI Metaphor (For Better or Worse)
Tron: Ares is not subtle about its themes. In an era of ChatGPT, deep fakes, and AI-generated art, a story about programs questioning their purpose and demanding recognition as sentient beings lands with obvious relevance. The film’s pitch about “humanity’s first encounter with A.I. beings” could have come from a tech conference keynote.
Some of this works. Ares’ journey from weapon to person mirrors conversations about AI consciousness and rights. His growing awareness that Julian sees him as expendable, that he’s been reset and rebuilt countless times with no regard for what he might have experienced, raises genuine ethical questions.
Some of it doesn’t. The film’s theological flourishes—Eve as the woman tempted by knowledge, Ares the god of war learning peace, Athena the goddess of wisdom lacking any—feel heavy-handed. The orange (not apple) from the digital Eden carries no real weight.
But honestly? I didn’t need the film to be Blade Runner. I needed it to be an entertaining action film with something to say about our relationship with artificial intelligence, and it cleared that bar.
Why the Critics Missed the Point
The consensus seems to be that Tron: Ares is “gorgeous to behold but too narratively programmatic to achieve an authentically human dimension.” That’s a fancy way of saying it looks amazing but lacks soul. And I understand that criticism—but I also think it’s the wrong metric for this film.
Not every movie needs to be emotionally devastating. Not every sci-fi film needs to reinvent the genre. Sometimes a film can succeed by being exactly what it sets out to be: a visually spectacular action adventure that asks interesting questions about consciousness and humanity while delivering thrilling set pieces.
The comparison critics keep making to Blade Runner 2049—specifically about how Ryan Gosling’s replicant showed more nuanced emotional growth—isn’t fair. That film had nearly three hours and a much smaller scope to develop one character’s journey. Ares juggles multiple programs, multiple Grids, and the collision between digital and physical worlds in under two hours. It’s a different beast entirely.
The Box Office Reality
Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: Tron: Ares made $142 million worldwide against a production budget of $180-220 million, plus another $102.5 million in marketing. That’s a disaster by Hollywood standards, virtually ensuring we won’t see another Tron film for years, if ever.
This hurts because the film sets up genuine intrigue for the future. Julian’s transformation into a Sark hybrid. Ares searching for Quorra and Sam. The question of whether programs can truly achieve permanence. These threads deserve resolution.
But I’m not surprised audiences stayed away. The franchise has always been niche, and fifteen years between films is an eternity in cinema time. The mixed reviews didn’t help. Neither did the strange red carpet controversy involving Grok AI and Tesla Optimus, which made the film’s AI themes feel less like science fiction and more like Elon Musk propaganda.
Finding Beauty in the Grid
Here’s what I keep coming back to: Tron: Ares made me feel something the original never did and Legacy only occasionally achieved. It made the digital world feel tangible. When Light Cycles carved through real streets, when Athena’s plasma trail cut a car in half, when Ares touched rain for the first time and looked up in wonder—these moments connected.
The film isn’t perfect. The dialogue gets clunky when explaining tech jargon. Some plot conveniences strain credibility. The pacing sags in the middle when Eve and Ares are on the run. I wish we’d spent more time in the 1982 Grid, which gets barely ten minutes of screen time.
But perfect isn’t always what matters. Sometimes you want a film that commits fully to its visual identity, that swings for spectacle and lands most of its hits. That’s what I got with Tron: Ares, and I’m grateful for it.
Conclusion: A Defense of Style Over Substance
If you loved Tron: Legacy for its atmosphere and Daft Punk soundtrack, you’ll find similar pleasures here. If you’re coming for deep character work and emotional resonance, you’ll probably leave disappointed. I went in hoping for a gorgeous science fiction action film with some interesting ideas about AI consciousness, and I got exactly that.
The original Tron revolutionized computer graphics but aged poorly. Legacy looked incredible but felt emotionally distant. Ares splits the difference, delivering stunning visuals with just enough heart to make the journey worthwhile.
It’s not the film critics wanted. It’s probably not the film Disney wanted, given the box office returns. But it’s the film I wanted when I bought my ticket—a chance to visit the Grid one more time, to see Light Cycles burning through city streets, to watch a program discover what it means to be alive.
And in that moment when Ares writes a postcard to Eve at the film’s end, his handwriting large and sloppy and taking up the entire card, I smiled. Because sometimes the most human thing you can do is try to communicate, even when you’re not sure you have the words.
Tron: Ares is flawed, beautiful, and more watchable than it has any right to be. In a franchise that began with a barely-watchable original, that feels like progress.
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