‘Tron: Ares’ review: Jared Leto goes off grid in bombastic sequel to classic AI franchise

Dir: Joachim Ronning. US. 2025. 119mins

With a symphony of vivid LED colours and a propulsive Nine Inch Nails score, Tron: Ares almost gets by on style points but eventually succumbs to an uninspired story and the worst tendencies of franchise brand management. This follow-up to 2010’s Tron: Legacy increases the stakes by bringing the virtual world into our reality, casting Jared Leto as a digital programme trained to be a lethal supersoldier. Predictably, though, the programme eventually grows a conscience, setting in motion a predictable mashup of Pinocchio, The Terminator and Robocop that features some striking set pieces but a tired commentary about humanity’s role in an increasingly technological society.

Shamelessly recycles musty sci-fi tropes

Disney opens Tron: Ares across the globe on October 10. The original 1982 picture was groundbreaking in terms of computer effects, gaining a cult following that led to the 2010 sequel, which brought in $400 million worldwide. Leto may be the star of this third instalment, alongside Jeff Bridges, who reprises his role from the earlier two films, but the underlying intellectual property will be the principal draw 

Megalomaniacal Dillinger Corporation CEO Julian (Evan Peters) wants to keep his tech company’s future flourishing, and unveils an ambitious A.I. system that offers cutting-edge military technology in the form of Ares (Leto), an advanced program that exists on The Grid but can provide elite security in the real world. Meanwhile, Julian’s competitor Eve (Greta Lee), who runs ENCOM, hopes to unlock a solution to a secret about the Ares technology: it can only exist in our reality for 29 minutes before self-destructing. Julian dispatches Ares to steal Eve’s research but, in the process, the seemingly unfeeling Ares begins to be moved by Eve’s sensitivity and decency.

Norwegian director Joachim Ronning, who previously helmed sequels to the Disney hits Pirates Of The Caribbean and Maleficent, takes a page from Tron: Legacy filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, who gave the franchise a sleek updating and a larger canvas. Screened for critics in IMAX 3D, Tron: Ares is similarly visually spectacular, with cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth and production designer Darren Gilford ensuring that both the real world and The Grid boast a futuristic urban sheen. Incorporating practical effects as much as possible, Ronning creates high-speed chase scenes in both realms that are highlighted by Nine Inch Nails’ industrial soundtrack that pays homage to Wendy Carlos’ and Daft Punk’s synth-laden contributions to, respectively, the 1982 and 2010 pictures.

In the early going, Tron: Ares is such a visual and sonic pleasure that it only slowly becomes apparent that Jesse Wigutow’s screenplay shamelessly recycles musty sci-fi tropes. Ares’ discovery of his soul, which goes along with his growing bond with Eve, is just the latest example of a genre work that examines the perils of humans trying to play god. (If the point was not obvious enough, a brief flashback shows Eve reading Frankenstein.) Leto is hamstrung by his generic Pinocchio-like character who longs to be real, but he does not help the cause by playing him as such a bland hero. As Ares rejects his programming and starts to protect Eve, Julian sends Ares’ second-in-command, Athena (a fearsome Jodie Turner-Smith), to destroy Ares, leading to the film becoming a battle of machines reminiscent of James Cameron’s Terminator pictures – right down to their exploration of consciousness and fate.

As expected, Ronning makes sure to give franchise aficionados plenty of fan service — including one agreeably nostalgic callback to the 1982 Tron that illustrates just how far computer graphics have evolved in the last 43 years. But these nods are more distracting than rewarding, culminating in an especially egregious credits-sequence teaser. (Likewise, Bridges’ reprisal of his role as the visionary programmer Flynn feels painfully obligatory.

Still, the director invests the material with sufficient vigour especially when he brings elements of The Grid to our reality, turning an unnamed metropolis into a colourful videogame. (The energetic action sequences were shot in Vancouver.) And Tron: Ares occasionally flashes signs of a sense of humour, which undercuts the ponderous proclamations about what it means to be human and whether A.I. will be our ruin or our saviour.

But whereas Tron: Legacy was a bold reimagining of the series, Tron: Ares mostly recreates Kosinski’s moody, eye-catching aesthetic, eventually becoming an unlikely buddy comedy of sorts as Ares and Eve team up to defeat the Dillinger Corporation. But Lee, so touching in 2023’s Past Lives, is here reduced to playing a nondescript  CEO who is saddled with an unconvincing tragic backstory. She and Leto have little chemistry – a serious problem for a film that insists we root for them as proof of why soulless technology can never replace flesh-and-blood humanity. But for all the creativity on display in Tron: Ares, it’s in service of a story with scant signs of life.