Tron: Ares (2025) Review — Jared Leto Leads a Cold Return to the Grid

Tron Ares (2025)

Directed by: Joaquim Rønning

Written by: Jesse Wigutow

Starring: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jeff Bridges, Evan Peters, Gillian Anderson

Release Date: October 10, 2025

Tron: Ares (2025) brings Jared Leto into Disney’s neon-drenched cyber world — but despite stellar visuals and a score from Nine Inch Nails, this third Tron film remains as sleek and soulless as ever.

The Emptiness at the Core of the Tron Universe

In my original review of Tron (1982), I recalled a joke that the formerly funny Dennis Miller made about how Tron was Al Gore’s favorite movie — a jab at Gore’s perceived stiffness and lack of emotion. That comparison remains apt. For all of Tron’s digital brilliance, it has always felt like a movie with a frozen core: dazzling to look at, but empty inside.

The 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy did little to change that perception. It was stylish, yes, and Daft Punk’s score became an instant classic. But its characters — and its story — were as cold and mechanical as the circuitry on screen. Watching Tron: Legacy again this week, I was struck by how little I remembered of it.

Ares and the Battle for Permanence

Now, fifteen years later, Tron: Ares continues the same sleek, emotionless trajectory. Jared Leto stars as Ares, a computer program created by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the soulless CEO of the Dillinger Corporation. His mission: bring the Grid — the digital world of Tron — into the real world.

Ares is designed as a kind of disposable soldier, a program who can die and be reprinted endlessly to keep fighting. But there’s a catch — Ares can only exist in the real world for 29 minutes before he “derezzes” and must be reprinted again. Dillinger’s plan hinges on acquiring something called the permanence code, a lost piece of programming once created by Encom founder Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) that could allow digital beings to live permanently in the physical world.

Unfortunately for Dillinger, the code is held — or possibly hidden — by Encom’s new CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee). When Ares is sent to retrieve the code, he discovers something unexpected: through hacking her life, he begins to understand her kindness, loss, and humanity. When ordered to kill her, Ares rebels against his creator and sides with Eve to uncover the permanence code and perhaps, finally, become real.

Between Two Worlds — and Neither Feels Alive

Unlike Tron and Tron: Legacy, which spent most of their time inside the Grid, Tron: Ares splits its story between the digital and physical worlds. In doing so, director Joaquim Rønning loses much of what makes Tron unique. Fans come to this series for the surreal, luminous world inside the computer — not for generic real-world chase scenes.

The action in the real world feels like it could belong to any other sci-fi blockbuster. Meanwhile, the Grid scenes, which should feel wondrous, are bogged down by dull philosophical chatter about the nature of life and emotion. “Is intelligence life? Is feeling a certain way about Depeche Mode a sign of humanity?” asks one character. The question might sound clever, but like much of Tron: Ares, it’s more mechanical than meaningful.

Jeff Bridges’ Ghost in the Machine

Jeff Bridges, returning as Kevin Flynn, remains the franchise’s only emotional anchor. In interviews before the film’s release, Bridges admitted he was surprised to be asked back. That self-aware amusement carries into his performance, as Flynn appears like a ghostly echo of his younger self — an aging program clinging to his identity.

It’s a touching presence in an otherwise sterile film. Bridges feels alive, even as his digital double does not.

A Cold, Beautiful Void

There’s no denying Tron: Ares looks incredible. The visuals are slick, the design meticulous, and the Nine Inch Nails score pulses with industrial energy. But the film itself feels empty — as if constructed by the same algorithms that populate its world.

Greta Lee’s Eve Kim carries real emotional weight, but she’s underused. Jared Leto’s Ares is all surface, no soul. Gillian Anderson, as Julian Dillinger’s mother and the former CEO of Dillinger Corp, provides the film’s only truly human spark. When she slaps her son in anger, it’s a jolt of genuine life — the kind of shock this movie desperately needs more of.

Final Thoughts: The Grid Without a Pulse

Tron: Ares is visually astonishing but emotionally vacant — a movie that confuses aesthetic precision for meaning. Like its predecessors, it’s a film about artificial life that feels oddly lifeless.

For a franchise built on the collision between humanity and technology, Tron: Ares remains trapped inside the machine.