Tron: Ares (2025) is the third chapter in this beautiful and stunning universe of Tron, which was created by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird, who were inspired by video games and Alice in Wonderland. The Tron franchise, while being one of the most iconic cult classics in cinema history, has always had an underdog kind of spirit compared to other science fiction movies. Tron basically has its own lane and is essentially revolutionising, evolving and changing visual and special effects story telling forever in science fiction with a lot of the ideas in the movies becoming science fact, always being ahead of the curve. A lot of critics have struggled to sometimes truly grasp its concept until years after the films come out, such as touching upon AI-Artificial Intelligence. That’s the beauty of art, that it is always subjective and there is no right or wrong, just various perspectives and opinions. Tron (1982) was the film that made a young Jeff Bridges a bonafide superstar and when the sequel Tron: Legacy (2010) came out, it was like life imitating art. Jeff Bridges was now an elder statesmen and legend in the film business and his character of Kevin Flynn was now the legendary software engineer, video game designer and former CEO of Encom who had disappeared into the digital world known as the grid 20 years earlier. Both the character and actor’s legacy had grown equally and we got to follow his son Sam Flynn’s journey to rescue and find his father who disappeared from his life when he was a child. Rejoining a world of Lightcycles, Wingchute jetpacks and flying Recognizer flying ships, Tron: Ares is a combination of fantasy and action with a callback to the original grid and 80’s retro pop culture.
In Tron: Ares we meet a state of the art security defence programme named Ares (Jared Leto) after the Greek God of war. He was created by Dillinger Systems, the company founded by Kevin Flynn’s arch-nemesis from the first film Edward Dillinger and world class engineer, hacker and Dillinger Systems CEO his grandson, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) who took over from his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson). Ares is the perfect soldier for all intents and purposes with his only weakness being he can only survive in the real world for 29 minutes. He is the general of the security system which protects Dillinger’s grid, what begins to happen is that Ares starts to become curious about all things human, and basically develop a soul and conscious. Eve Kim (Greta Lee) who is the CEO of Encom, is working on finding a code that Flynn created decades ago that would allow artificial life forms from the grid to become real in our world permanently, so a race against time ensues to gain this piece of life changing technology that Flynn hid away for good reason. 43 years of history continuing with technology finally catching up with filmmakers imagination.
MUSIC IS LIKE ANOTHER CHARACTER
What makes this movie fun and engaging is the music, beautifully, and viscerally in sync with the scenes and imagery, especially the battle between Ares and his Dillinger systems soldiers and Encom’s security systems soldiers to the song ‘Infiltrator is magnificent, the neon blue, red and black suits in this other worldly setting which is the grid is a sight to behold when they attempt to hack the data frame. I’ve always believed that music is like another character in movies and TV, what Nine Inch Nails achieves here is beyond exceptional with the music, which has made it popular with audiences and theme ‘As Alive as You Need Me To Be’, composing for the film.
Special mention to Depeche Mode who contribute greatly to atmosphere and spectacle with their music with their 1981 hit song ‘I just can’t get enough’ and Wendy Carlos the original film composer of Tron (1982). Director Joachim Ronning does a good job of combining all these elements together for a genuine fun ride and cinema experience with a very good and solid cast with Greta Lee being the emotional tether of the story with an internal, emotional empathy and likability.
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