By Todd Russell
Editor: I posted first this movie review to my Letterboxd (see ‘TRON: Ares’ review by Todd Russell • Letterboxd), where I’m closing in on 1,000 movie reviews, but after posting realized that site for non-paying members has become a complete advertising hellscape. You can’t read without the text position jumping after a certain number of seconds. So, I copied my review here where readers could enjoy ad-free and without being totally annoyed and disturbed by whatever the hell Letterboxd is doing in 2025.
One last important thing this isn’t being posted here for clickbait or attention. There are zero ads and no affiliate links on this website — there never have been — and I’m barely posting any articles anywhere these days, anyway, because I’m busy focusing on other creative projects. I did this purely for the sake of readers being able to read unviolated. If you don’t care about Tron: Ares or whatever I think of the movie, just skip this and move on. Maybe Score Chasing season 4 will be of more interest, where we play many arcade games, including 80s games like Tron 😉
Back in 2019, I left a review on the original 1982 Tron, giving that 3.5 stars out of 5, see here: letterboxd.com/tjsnk/film/tron/ — After being mostly underwhelmed with the 2010 Tron Legacy, I wasn’t expecting much with Tron: Ares (but hey, it had Scully!). A friend that is a fan of the franchise gave this high praise, so I rolled the dice and went to see it in IMAX Laser 3D.
Normally, I stay away from significant plot points in reviews. I’m going to violate most of that in what follows here, so if you haven’t seen Tron:Ares yet and are interested in doing so, then just skip to the last paragraph and don’t read the rest that follows, so you won’t spoil several plot points. If you have seen Tron: Ares already and want to know what somebody else thinks that dropped $56 after overpriced (but tasty!) popcorn, soda, candy and the ticket price to see in full IMAX Laser 3D, then please read all.
Let’s start with the IMAX experience. Very crisp, bright images and sound that will literally buzz you in the chest. I put this IMAX Laser 3D experience, as far as pure visuals, up there with some of the best 3D movies I’ve ever seen. I’d like to see more 3D movies like this. It’s way more than gimmicky, as another friend says. I’d say this is the premier way to see this type of movie, kind of like the case for the Avatar movies.
But what about the Tron: Ares the story? It’s a fairly simple story about chasing around machine “permanence”, essentially mixing in a little bit of the Pinocchio story for Ares, a machine wanting to live beyond an unexplained, and thus, completely arbitrary amount of time. The wooden and mostly robotic actor Jared Leto was cast as Ares, and his acting was mostly soulless, just like pretty much every other performance I’ve seen from him. Here, the whole concept of his mechanical desire to pursue mankind tries to make his character likeable. If only it was any other actor, I might have taken the bait.
The strength of the simplicity of this cliched storyline is also its weakness: it’s just not a very creative story. When are we going to get a story where AI isn’t just some evil, calculating mechanical force? Not really here, for even though Ares is a conflicted character, he’s often one-dimensional. A machine that wants to be a man? Yeah, we’ve seen that story done again, again, again (Bicentenniel Man with Robin Williams just one of dozens of past tales, a dramatically better actor than Leto, BTW).
If I didn’t think about the elements of the plot and logic that were shaky, I could lose myself and enjoy the action and pacing. This is better than how I remember Tron: Legacy. I bought both Legacy and the original Tron when I got home so I could revisit the trilogy and put it all in context.
What made the original Tron so much fun is somewhat missing from Tron: Ares: the games focus. I was hopeful to see more of that aspect. Not trying to significantly spoil the movie plot here, but there just aren’t many games being played. Yeah, we have the light cycles, but that’s about it. Tron was about going inside the grid and playing against and beating the machine. Getting out of the grid. There is *some* of this concept explored, but there is less reliance on the gameplay for survival and more on chasing possession of the “permanence” code and avoiding the (oooo, ahhh) 29 second derez in the real world gimmick.
Seriously, what is up with 29 seconds? Who chose that number? Why? Did I just miss why machines break down in the real world at precisely 29 seconds? If you Google it, you’ll find out that 29 in numerology is an angel number involving seeking enlightenment. That point is made in the movie, as the good side is seeking to use AI for humanitarian purposes and yet the bad side only wants 29 for dominance, power and control, which is the polar opposite of the number’s meaning and intention. Technically, this makes sense within the confines of the story, but it’s not very deep good vs. evil storytelling. Why can’t the machines also seek enlightenment … well, I guess Ares sort of does, but that plot point is muddied up by never really explaining to the viewer why 29 is the answer. Had this been tied in somewhere in the story, we might have went “oh my, that’s the answer!” Instead, we find the machine fascinated with 80s music because it has a certain “feel”? Really? A machine is going to go rogue on its programming over an 80s band and love for a single human being? Self preservation seems like a more logical motivation, but that is too selfish and it seems more fun to drop an 80s reference (will admit, it is fun, because I love the 80s).
And then there’s Scully – Gillian Anderson (see: Scully joins cast of Tron: Ares + Will we get a good, new Tron game to play?) – barely looking and sounding like Anderson, playing the mother of the bad guy descendent Dillinger. Her accent was intriguing, but her character doesn’t really do anything meaningful except trying to be some kind of moral compass. A shame, because this character could have done … more. Anderson is a very skilled actress, but she was more of an afterthought character in this story. Whenever she is on the screen, you do get a sense of soul in the moment. Wish there was more to her. Why doesn’t she *do* more? Why doesn’t she get involved in the action instead of just staying on the sidelines and weighing in?
Major spoiler: I’d say the same for Flynn. He’s reduced to a God-like character, forever stuck in the machine and providing wisdom instead of action. Plot device, sadly, just to pave the way to the permanence mcguffin. I wanted Flynn to go with Ares on that 80s style grid and *do* something. Instead, they are just there to tease the viewers. Tease us into thinking we have the original movie in 2025? No, we don’t. Playing the game isn’t what Tron: Ares is about. It’s about passively watching what the game used to be like, with some flashy effects and fight scenes.
Where to start with the AI … AI, AI, AI. Can’t we have AI that is more than just dumb good vs. evil? Not here, no. It’s more of the same, same, same. I actually thought there was more cool AI in one of the preview movies where a guy (Chris Pratt) is on trial with an AI judge and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence. Now, *that* looks like a creative AI story.
This one? Mostly, it’s the same AI (AI is evil!) we already know. The Terminator-esqe world where machines are obedient and militaristic. Where they just follow orders to follow orders. Logical to the end, except for Ares that is “malfunctioning” (just rolled my eyes at that plotline) and seeks to be free from the synthetic death knell of being a machine.
I see the making of a sequel at the end, which is Hollywood’s not so clever way of not writing any actual creative endings, so if this does perform well, expect to see another Tron of this ilk. I *might* pay to see that sequel, because the IMAX Laser 3D experience was amazing, but I’m all but giving up on Disney churning out any original, creative ideas (although, my interest in Mandalorian and Grogu is piqued!)
At the end of the day, I was entertained. Unfortunately, it’s not in the same *creative* league as the original, but the DNA of the original Tron is here and it is a fun escape for a couple hours. So, if you’re a Tron fan, and I am, then you will probably like this movie. But, and this is the underlying problem, it’s missing originality and that stops me from *loving* it. Too often it spoils the opportunity to tell a new story within the Tron world, to play and enjoy playing the game (think Running Man meets Tron), instead falling back mostly on tropes, thin characters with obvious and tired shticky good vs. evil motivations. Therefore, I’m — reluctantly — giving it 3 of 5 stars. I enjoyed the action and effort to keep the story it was telling tight, which is fairly constant throughout the film, but I felt more like this was trying to cash in on the Tron name then embody the creativity of the amazing world Tron offers. Maybe in the next one we’ll get the games! The games! Tron was, after all, a fun 80s game to play. What would be the game tie-in for Ares? Avoid a bunch of bad guys with a 29 second game timer … I guess. Sigh. Do I recommend seeing this movie in the theater? As I did in full IMAX 3D, if you love Tron and can forgive weak storytelling? Yes. If not, wait for the sale and watch it on streaming. I liked the action of the movie, but like the vast majority of Hollywood trash being thrown at us these days, Tron: Ares feels like just another short, mostly emotionless action trip. Go back and watch the original Tron again. Then compare to … this? You’ll see exactly what’s missing.