TRON: ARES

Taking The Grid Out

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Studio: Disney Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi MPAA Rating: PG-13

Premiere Date: 10/10/2025 Runtime: 119 min Reviewed By: Ridge Harripersad

Tron: Ares follows Ares (Jared Leto), an advanced program sent from the digital realm into the physical world on a perilous mission, marking humanity's first contact with artificial intelligence beings. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) is on the verge of beating ENCOM to the Al punch, in that he can bring a digital item/being into the real world—but only for 29 minutes. The new CEO of ENCOM, Eve Kim (Greta Lee), hopes to thwart Julian's plan by finding Kevin Flynn’s original source code, so ENCOM can finish permanently integrating Tron world elements with reality without the time delay.

I went into this 15-year gap sequel with the expectation that the music/score and visuals would drive the entertainment value like its predecessor, but the story would still be iffy—if not, worse. To my surprise, the story was not terrible as it had something more to say. I did not expect to see a second Frankenstein film this year! The creator and creature tropes were prevalent in this film, even referencing and quoting Mary Shelley's novel. The film contained a lot of Al exploration, which was troubling but relevant to our current technological climate.

I thought Eve liking Ares and vice versa was both super cheesy and scary. Their flirty conversations reminded me of how more people are interacting with Al companions in real life than ever before. I assumed the movie would have paired Eve and Seth Flores (Arturo Castro) together, with Ares serving as the robot middleman. Instead, it was almost disturbing to see a human go doey-eyed over an Al person.