'Tron: Ares' Is Best Enjoyed as a Popcorn Flick Than a Profound Film About AI

It took 15 years for Disney to release a followup to 2010's "Tron: Legacy," and 28 years before that to release the 1982 original starring Jeff Bridges.

- By Januar Junior Aguja

While the Tron franchise may not have the same chokehold on pop culture as its sister franchises like Star Wars and Marvel did, it had enough fans for Disney to consider a third film due to the franchise's large-scale, ahead-of-its-time ambition with groundbreaking visual effects — and it shows in "Tron: Ares.

This film does not follow Kevin Flynn (Bridges) nor his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund). Instead, it focuses on a newer set of characters, with Eve Kim (Greta Lee) responsible for carrying the Flynn legacy as the CEO of Encom as she enters a digital race against her rival and CEO of Dillinger Systems, Julian (Evan Peters), grandson of former Encom executive Ed Dillinger, who was the antagonist in the first film.

Eve and Julian both unveil impressive tech where digital constructs can turn into sentient beings in the real world. The problem is that they only last 29 minutes before melting, and their digital consciousness returns to their respective virtual realms.

Believing that Kevin Flynn's older computers contain a code that would allow these digital beings to last beyond their expiry, Eve goes to a remote area in Alaska in an attempt to get ahead of her nemesis.

However, as soon as she gets the upper hand, Julian uses his digital soldiers, Ares (Jared Leto) and Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), to chase after Eve in a desperate bid to save his grandfather's company, as his power-tripping moves continuously get disapproval from his mother, Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson).