Disney's Tron: Ares is less a movie and more an algorithmic exercise in style

Visually hypnotic but narratively hollow, Tron: Ares is a movie that confuses noise for novelty and nostalgia for depth.

Director: Joachim Rønning

Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Cameron Monaghan, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges

Rating: ★.5

Jared Leto in a still from Tron: Ares

More than four decades after Tron changed how cinema looked at computers, Disney attempts to reboot the grid yet again with Tron: Ares. Directed by Joachim Rønning, this third chapter brings Jared Leto into the digital labyrinth as the titular AI program, alongside Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith and a blink-and-miss Jeff Bridges cameo. The original 1982 film was groundbreaking for its time, while 2010’s Tron: Legacy at least had Daft Punk’s score to keep it alive. Ares, however, feels more like a glossy reboot nobody asked for — an overdesigned screensaver masquerading as science fiction.

At its core, the story picks up in a future where two rival tech corporations — Encom and the villainously named Dillinger — are locked in a digital arms race. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), a smirking tech-bro heir, is obsessed with bringing AI creations from the virtual grid into the real world. His experiments have one problem: anything he transfers crumbles to dust after 29 minutes. The fix lies in the mysterious “permanence code,” guarded by Encom’s CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee). To steal it, Julian unleashes his ultimate weapon — Ares (Jared Leto), a hyper-intelligent humanoid who can briefly cross into human reality. But once Ares experiences emotion — the sound of rain, the pulse of Depeche Mode, the idea of empathy — his programming begins to glitch. Cue an identity crisis somewhere between Frankenstein and Pinocchio, as Ares starts wondering if being human is more than just good coding.

Nine Inch Nails, taking over from Daft Punk, delivers a pounding score that injects the film with pulse when the script fails to. Jodie Turner-Smith’s Athena, a fierce lieutenant with the aura of Grace Jones, brings much-needed energy to an otherwise mechanical ensemble. And for a fleeting moment, Gillian Anderson as Julian’s icy mother — all sharp cheekbones and Margaret Thatcher-esque menace — reminds you what human authority looks like in a sea of digital puppets.

The bad

For a film about artificial intelligence finding its humanity, Tron: Ares feels spectacularly artificial. Jared Leto’s performance is as smooth and unreadable as his CGI armor — a humanoid performance about as soulful as a motherboard. The screenplay mistakes cryptic dialogue for depth, making most scenes sound like they were written by an actual chatbot.

The central premise — AIs breaking into the real world — could’ve been thrilling if it wasn’t weighed down by clunky exposition and endless callbacks to the original films. The constant references to Flynn, the recycled iconography, and the obligatory Jeff Bridges cameo all feel less like homage and more like corporate checkboxing. And while the action sequences look expensive, they rarely carry any emotional charge. When everything glows, nothing truly shines.

Even the film’s moral questions — about AI ethics, empathy, and control — are handled with the philosophical depth of a startup pitch deck. What could’ve been an engaging exploration of sentience ends up being a two-hour loop of pretty lights and hollow rhetoric.

The verdict

Tron: Ares wants to be profound but settles for pretty. It toys with big ideas — consciousness, control, creation — without ever saying anything new about them. The visuals may dazzle, the music may thunder, but beneath that neon polish lies the same old emptiness that plagued Tron: Legacy.

It’s ironic that a film about artificial intelligence feels like it was written, directed, and edited by one. By the time the credits roll, you’re left wondering not what makes us human — but what made Disney think this franchise needed another resurrection.