TRON: Ares

The first time a Light Cycle streaked across the screen in 1982, it felt like we were peering into the future through a keyhole. By 2010, TRON: Legacy turned that keyhole into a panoramic window of neon and Daft Punk beats. But TRON: Ares? This is the moment the window shattered and the digital glass fell into our backyard. I watched this in a half-empty theater where the air conditioning was set to "Cryogenic Freeze," and honestly, the shivering helped me relate to the lead character’s discomfort with biological existence. It’s a film that desperately wants to be the Terminator 2 of the franchise, but it often feels more like a high-end tech demo that forgot to clear its cache.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (Digital Edition)

The premise flips the script: instead of a human zapping into the computer, we get Jared Leto as Ares, a "highly sophisticated Program" crossing over into the real world. Leto is, well, Leto. He plays Ares with a wide-eyed, twitchy intensity that suggests he’s trying to smell the color blue at all times. It’s a performance that works for a being who has never experienced gravity or the smell of a damp sidewalk, though your mileage may vary on his "method" approach to playing a line of code.

Opposite him is Greta Lee (so brilliant in Past Lives) as Eve Kim. She’s the human anchor, and frankly, she carries the emotional weight of the movie on her back. When she’s on screen, the stakes feel real; when she’s not, the movie threatens to float away into a cloud of gorgeous, empty pixels. The chemistry is... digital. It’s functional, but you won't find the warmth that Jeff Bridges (who returns briefly as Kevin Flynn to remind us what charisma looks like) brought to the original.

The Budgetary Black Hole

Let’s address the elephant in the server room: the $220 million price tag. In an era of franchise fatigue, Disney bet the farm on a 40-year-old IP that has always been more of a "cult favorite" than a box-office juggernaut. Joachim Rønning, who directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, brings a glossy, expensive sheen to the proceedings. The virtual production—using the same LED "Volume" tech that powered The Mandalorian—is seamless, but there’s a certain sterility to it.

The film's box office performance was, to put it gently, a "system crash." It’s one of those contemporary oddities that feels like it was designed by a committee trying to predict what 2025 audiences wanted, only to realize the audience had already moved on to the next shiny thing. It’s a "legacy sequel" that struggles to find its own identity outside of the neon shadow of its predecessors. Evan Peters pops up as Julian Dillinger, a nice nod to the original film’s antagonist, but the script by Jesse Wigutow doesn't give him much to do other than look corporately sinister.

A Score for the Glitch-Heads

If there is one reason to seek this out on the biggest sound system you can find, it’s the score. Replacing Daft Punk is a Herculean task, but Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were the right calls. Their work here is abrasive, industrial, and deeply unsettling. It doesn't have the "cool" factor of the 2010 soundtrack, but it perfectly captures the horror of a digital entity being shoved into a meat-suit. The sound design during the chase sequences—particularly a moment involving a deconstructed Light Cycle in a rainy downtown alley—is literally enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.

The action choreography is a mixed bag. When the film leans into the physics-defying nature of the Programs, it’s spectacular. There’s a fight scene in a high-tech lab that uses "digital glitching" as a combat mechanic, and it’s genuinely fresh. However, when it devolves into standard Hollywood "shoot-the-glowing-spot" action, the momentum stalls. For a movie about the cutting edge of A.I., the plot beats feel remarkably analog.

Ultimately, TRON: Ares is a fascinating failure. It’s a movie that asks what it means to be human in an age where our digital avatars are often more polished than our real selves, but it’s too afraid of its own shadow to give a meaningful answer. It’s a visual feast that leaves you feeling a bit hungry an hour later. If you’re a die-hard fan of the aesthetic, there’s enough here to justify a watch, especially for the Gillian Anderson cameo that almost steals the entire third act. Just don't expect it to rewrite your operating system.

It’s the kind of film that will likely be rediscovered in five years on a streaming service and labeled an "underrated gem" by people who didn't have to pay twenty bucks to see it in IMAX. It’s ambitious, loud, and weirdly melancholic. It didn't save the franchise, but it certainly left a beautiful, glowing corpse. If this is the end of the line for the TRON Collection, at least they went out with their neon lights flashing.