Just as some theater experiences require you to put on 3D glasses, anytime I reconnect with Tron: Legacy, there’s one condition: It’s got to be an edible arrangement (and I'm not talking about bouquets of fruit). Legacy falls under the special category of blockbusters that have nonsensical plots—don’t even bother trying to understand how humans teleport between the real world and the digital universe known as “the Grid”—but make up for those shortcomings by being absolute feasts for the eyes. Get a little high, and there’s a wonderfully transporting effect to the film’s sleek visual style, in which the Grid looks like an Apple Store retrofitted into a nightclub.
Appropriately, Legacy’s score was composed by the kings of electronic music, Daft Punk. When the duo makes a cameo as DJs for Michael Sheen in David Bowie cosplay, you don’t bat an eye—these robots belong in the cyber world, elevating Legacy into high art in every sense of the term. This is cinema.
Throw in Jeff Bridges talking about “bio-digital jazz” with the same wardrobe as the guy in my neighborhood conducting sound baths, and it’s clear that director Joseph Kosinski fully leaned into the trippiness of the endeavor. On those merits, well, mission accomplished. Unfortunately, like the original Tron, Legacy didn’t light up the box office or become a critical darling, but the film has developed a cult following in the 15 years since its release—championed by the enlightened few who can appreciate an audiovisual spectacle on vibes alone. I’ll never understand why more people weren’t thrilled about Disney forking over $170 million for a glorified Daft Punk music video, but to echo Bridges in the movie, the whole thing is radical, man.
Given that Legacy was itself a legacy sequel, you would’ve expected Disney to pull the plug on the Tron franchise for not having the mainstream appeal the studio wanted. However, talks of a follow-up have been in the works for the better part of a decade, with Kosinski originally eyed to return. (Although, now that Kosinski is doing his best Tony Scott impression, it’s perhaps unsurprising that he’s decided to leave the Grid behind.) Fast-forward to 2025, and the third film in the series, Tron: Ares, is less a continuation of Legacy than a beast of its own.
Directed by Joachim Ronning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the Maleficent sequel you definitely forgot about), Ares taps into our modern obsession with artificial intelligence as rival companies ENCOM and Dillinger Systems race to crack the “permanence code,” which would allow programs from the Grid to exist in our world just as we’ve explored theirs. (With current technology, digital entities can function for only 29 minutes on Earth before disintegrating and returning to the Grid; don’t ask me why.) Ares gets its name from one of Dillinger’s AI security programs, played by Jared Leto, who is tasked with retrieving the code from ENCOM’s CEO, Eve (Greta Lee), by any means necessary.
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In what amounts to a positive spin on AI rebelling against its creator, Ares ends up rescuing Eve because he’s drawn to her humanity, and she stands in stark contrast to Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the kind of cruel, impetuous tech bro that’s become Hollywood’s villain du jour. The rest of Ares is a race against time: If Ares can access the permanence code, he can live out his days on Earth while Eve uses the technology for the betterment of mankind. Conversely, if his 29 minutes run out, Dillinger can erase Ares from the digital world and command other programs to do his bidding. (Dillinger sees the value in selling this technology to military contractors since an obedient version of Ares is basically a supersoldier.)
The stretches of Ares that bring the franchise back to the Grid are reliably stunning, trading out the blue-and-orange color schemes from Legacy for a sinister red-and-black palette. One sequence, in which Dillinger Systems hacking ENCOM is treated like a cybernetic black-ops mission, is proof of concept for why it was such a good idea to revive the Tron franchise with modern VFX: There’s nothing else quite like it. The other essential component to a worthy Tron sequel is a kick-ass score, and while following in the footsteps of Daft Punk is a tall order, Nine Inch Nails is up to the challenge. The Ares score is moodier and edgier than its predecessor, aligning nicely with the rebellious spirit of the film’s protagonist. If I hear this at a bar, I’m running through a brick wall.
But for all that Ares does right within the Grid, the film commits much of its running time to the prospect of programs infiltrating the real world. That means, for instance, setting one of the franchise’s signature Light Cycle races in the streets of a major metropolitan area. Seeing futuristic bikes duke it out in a computerized gladiator arena is a psychedelic ride—having them cause traffic jams is, if you’ll excuse the pun, downright pedestrian by comparison. Therein lies the problem with Ares: While it’s commendable that the film doesn’t want to simply recycle old ideas, placing so much of the action outside of the Grid is antithetical to everything that Tron is known for. And when the franchise’s entire reputation is built on being an otherworldly visual spectacle—Roger Ebert described Legacy’s plot as something that “can’t be understood,” and he still gave it an enthusiastic review—anything that gets in the way of that only highlights the film’s deficiencies, of which there are many. [Gestures at Jared Leto.]
To be clear, a science fiction franchise can stay true to its roots and still push things in exciting new directions. Look no further than Alien: Earth, which fits within its franchise thematically as well as aesthetically but adds some fascinating wrinkles to the universe concerning AI and how corporations have taken over the planet. However, Ares’s insertion of elements of the Grid into the real world becomes a crutch to its visual style more than an innovation. (Would you want to watch an Avatar sequel that abandons Pandora? Exactly!) As a result, Ares lacks the requisite trippiness that is the franchise’s calling card.
With the exception of its Nine Inch Nails score, Ares doesn’t possess any qualities that will stand the test of time: Like the programs that infiltrate our planet, the film will disintegrate from memory as soon as it leaves theaters. In other words, Ares is a far cry from Legacy, which will always carry historical significance for having the world’s only Daft Punk film score, launching Kosinski’s career as a blockbuster guru, and kick-starting a wave of legacy sequels. Similarly, while the special effects in the original Tron are extremely outdated, that kitschiness is part of its enduring cult appeal—to say nothing of the film’s role as an early pioneer for the kind of CGI that paved the way for Pixar’s Toy Story. (All our childhoods were better for it.) But if every Tron movie aspires to be on the digital frontier and reflects the era it’s made in, what, exactly, can we glean from something as unmemorable as Ares?
If you ask me, Ares is a cautionary tale of all the things you shouldn’t do in a modern blockbuster: a premise that goes against the strengths of the franchise, a journeyman director with an uninspiring résumé, a lead actor so lifeless that he might as well have been replaced with AI, and a marketing campaign incorporating [check notes] MrBeast. (We live in the darkest timeline.) Despite all that, Ares does gesture toward a sequel with a mid-credits scene back inside the Grid, which would at least right the movie’s biggest wrong. But with Ares projected to have an opening weekend on par with Legacy, it’s hard to imagine there’s much of a future for the Tron franchise on the big screen. Maybe that’s for the best: Artificial intelligence might not be taking over the real world in Ares, but the film lacks a human touch.
