There’s a quote by Sarah Dessen I like, about how home is not a place but a moment. I love 1982’s Tron and, when I watch it, it is like I reconnect with part of me from when I saw it in its original theatrical run. Then there was 2010s Tron: Legacy, for which I have no nostalgia, and which a recent rewatch had me realize is worse than I remembered. Now there is 2025’s Tron: Ares, which had me realize, another axiom which is similar to the Dessen quote, and that is you can’t go home again.
It’s not like this most recent installment doesn’t try. This one may have less gratuitous fan service than the 2010 film, but it actually returns us briefly to the primitive computer world of the first movie. But, even with the hearts of the filmmakers clearly being in the right place, this moment feels a sad, pale imitation of the original. It is a trip I wish we hadn’t taken. And the remainder of the film hardly took me anywhere new or interesting.
At least the central premise this time warrants a sequel more than that of Legacy. I had not previously wondered would happen if the world inside computers (aka “The Grid”) managed to crossover into ours, instead of us into it. But, once I learned that was the plot this time, I thought this had potential. Alas, the result is unsatisfying. It is like how a Han Solo origin story seemed to have so much potential, but then we saw Solo and realized we were mistaken.
Jared Leto plays the titular digital warrior, an advanced AI that the evil Evan Peters is trying to sell to the military as an unstoppable killing machine. But being able to think has Leto emotionally moved by such elements as the scent of rain, though I wondered how he can smell through what appears to be an unbroken glass faceplate on his helmet. Of even greater amazement to Leto is the fireflies he sees. Given the change of heart this begins within him, I guess fireflies save the world, and I like the idea of that.
His wonder is short lived, as he and everything else from The Grid (a phrase which annoys me more each time I type it) can exist in ours for only 29 minutes. This is why Greta Lee has been in a race to find a “permanence code” before Peters, a bit of computer code which enables such objects to endure for longer, possibly forever. Just when I thought AI was dangerous enough, here we have creations with superintelligence, which might evolve beyond our control, and possibly exist in a physical form permanently. Possibly wrong what go could?
Part of the theme song to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 warns the viewer to not be concerned with “science facts”, but those were all I could think of throughout the runtime. Earlier, I asked how Leto could smell the rain, but I wondered how he can smell at all. That would require lungs, olfactory receptors and a brain, at a minimum. In his original world, he would not need any of these. There wouldn’t even be air. Something that continues to confuse me about this series is there is gravity in The Grid. I don’t understand why somebody would make this world of boundless potential and slap a bunch of real-world constraints on it.
Even weirder is how little time we spend in that world, and the scenes in it are largely confined to one room. It is there Leto receives orders, and stern lectures, from a giant face which is Peters’s avatar. I liked how this was basically an upgrade of the Master Control Program which lords over the computer world in the original film. That said, I wondered why on Grid do we not see more of that world, since I thought that was the point of a Tron movie. I think I even kept trying to look around that face to see what was behind it. And, as I mentioned earlier, a scene will take place in the exact same world as that of the first film, but this felt shallow and almost condescending in its blatant fan service.
Needless to say, that giant face also brings to mind The Wizard of Oz. And Leto’s quest, like all the other characters here, to obtain that permanence code recalls Pinocchio, which is referenced directly. Frankenstein is also mentioned, but that is a connection I wouldn’t have made. Lee’s character is named Eve, and you get zero guesses as to which Biblical character that brings to mind, and the fact that the first object to which she applies the permanence code (something second only to The Grid in annoying me by typing so frequently) is an orange tree. Given the tree Ol’ Testament Eve was involved with brought the fall of man suggests her quest is deeply flawed. Arturo Castro, as Lee’s sidekick, later makes juice from the oranges of a tree she materialized from out of a digital realm, which seems highly questionable and may be the most ultraprocessed food imaginable.
I was nagged with questions about the lasers which do that materialization of stuff from The Grid (why do I feel like I need to add a trademark or copyright symbol after that?). I don’t know why the lasers from the previous films no longer sufficed, but the ones here work more like 3D printers, complete with those little bits that are only produced to support the structure and which are thrown away immediately after.
I will admit that the similar mechanism from the first two installments seems increasingly suspect over time. After all, it is a fundamental law of the universe that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, so what exactly are the building blocks of anything realized from The Grid made of? Also, if something brought in this manner from the digital world can only exist for roughly 30 minutes, why don’t humans who crossed over into that world and back to our own suffer the same constraint? Imagine if the end of the first movie had Bridges dissolving into dust less than an hour after escaping the computer world. Wouldn’t all matter rendered by the lasers, including the resurrected Bridges, be made of the same material? And should we call that raw material widgets or MacGuffins? I think I will call it flopdoodles, because that amuses me.
I thought the action sequences would at least be amazing, but they are largely serviceable. The neatest effect is the trail left by a lightcycle cleanly slicing through a pursuing police car. After seeing that once, further scenes of the cycles in our world are subject to the law of diminishing returns. So, at least one law is observed here, if not those of physics.
The special effects also seem like they should be more special than they are. The main problem is fantastical objects being in our world has the exact opposite effect of lil’ ol’ mundane us being in the computer world. It is the opposite of wonder. It is jarring for about 30 seconds to see a Recognizer coasting between skyscrapers. Also, given the obvious CGI of the action in even the alleged real world, one of those crashing into a skyscraper isn’t astounding. It is just some digital stuff crashing into other digital stuff. It is more impressive when a Recognizer collides with something in its natural habitat, because everything in that environment is a bit surreal. But we have seen buildings, and we have seen things crash into them in a great many movies, so this is just another occurrence of something we have seen in endless superhero movies and the like. I can’t pinpoint exactly why it is, but the action sequences largely had me thinking we were watching a film from the Terminator series instead of Tron.
If there is one element of the effects I can single out for praise, it is what isn’t done this time using them, and that is the de-aging of Bridges which was so appalling in Legacy. There is just a bit of it this time, limited to only an appearance by him in an interview as displayed on an old tube television. The real, and really old, Bridges will make a cameo in the world of the first movie, so Leto can was philosophical about Depeche Mode, of all things. I was baffled as to whether or not this moment is supposed to be funny, given how smugly serious Leto is with every single line delivery. I suspect Bridges was wondering why this series won’t just die.
Naturally, the end of this one suggests additional sequels to come. In the meantime, this makes a weird mash of the timeline, which must make the job of the “VP of Franchise Management” as listed in the end credits, more interesting. First, it is almost like the second movie doesn’t exist, except for a fleeting reference in an exposition dump at the beginning and a photo of Legacy’s stars in the final couple of minutes. I like to think Olivia Wilde had to be paid for that without having to bother to appear in person in another one of these.
Gillian Anderson is in a shallow role as Peter’s mother, and barely occupying even that, and I felt this was nothing more than collecting a paycheck. At least she gets to slap Peters at one point, because that is what everybody in the audience was wishing they could do themselves. Maybe she can call Wilde and they can have a good laugh over their experiences working in the franchise.
Now, what really makes Peters and Anderson confusing is he is the current, and she is the former, head of the Dillinger Corporation. If Cillian Murphy, as her brother, was on the board of ENCOM in the 2010 film, exactly how long has there been this competing firm? And that exposition dump makes it sound like this has been a long-running rivalry. I hate to go all “Star Wars fanboy” about all this, but I found myself distracted by these unnecessary burdens on the plot when there isn’t any need for them at all.
So, after all this whining, what did I like about the movie? There were some clever new variations on established elements of the franchise, such as somebody thinking to make a portable version of that laser. There are even more weapons and vehicles which leave solid trails in their wake like the lightcycles, a key one here being a boat. A fourth installment should be interesting if only to see this idea reaching the point of exhaustion, with maybe Segways or senior citizen motor scooters doing this.
A welcome change with this entry is the franchise expands in both race and gender, as the world of Tron, with its alleged infinite possibilities, has always been deeply male and White. I find it bemusing that, in this regard, it reflects the kind of world today’s techbros would doubtlessly conceive. Yet here is Lee, who is of Asian ancestry, and she is given something far closer to a heroic role than Wilde’s eye candy from Legacy. Jodie Turner-Smith, who is Black, is the tough protagonist from The Grid (I now have a new phrase akin to “grinding my teeth”, and that is “gridding my teeth”) who is a worthy adversary to Leto.
One of the best and worst aspects of the film is the score by Nine Inch Nails. I have no complaints about the music itself, and the soundtrack album works as a standalone listening experience. My complaint is the volume in the theater was so deafening, so bowel-rumbling, that I wondered if one of their concerts might be less painful to endure. I don’t see the point in the volume being so loud that sound distorts. In addition to the main score, there are needle drops by Depeche Mode and even a bit of Wendy Carlos’s score from the original film. Most confusing to me was a bit of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” in one scene. When I was a kid, only the hoodlums listened to Sabbath, and Tron would have been appallingly nerdy to them. I may love Sabbath now, but those worlds crossing over like this felt like a minor betrayal, possibly to fans of either one back in the day.
At one point while watching Tron: Ares, I realized I have paid nearly $20 a ticket to see the heroes escape Peters via a beat-up service van, which they drive to a convenience store. This is not why I want to see a movie in the universe of Tron and, as my wife pointed out to me, this isn’t a movie for fans of the original film. This is a rather typical action movie in the trappings of Tron. At no point during the runtime did I feel amused, intrigued, excited or even engaged. I left the theatre not even hating the movie. What is even worse than that is I felt nothing. Watching 1982’s Tron makes me feel like I am returning home. Watching Tron: Ares is like I tried to return home and discovered it had been torn down and a gaudy McMansion built in its place. Like Dessen said, home is a time and not a place.
Dir: Joachim Rønning
Starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Evan Peters, Jeff Bridges
Watched in a theatre, where I, regrettably, cannot control the volume.