Okja (2017): Bong Joon-ho’s Daring Netflix Masterpiece About Friendship and Food Ethics

Okja

Directed by Bong Joon Ho 

Written by Bong Joon Ho, Jon Ronson 

Starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal 

Release Date June 28th, 2017

Bong Joon-ho’s Okja is more than a Netflix fantasy about a girl and her super pig—it’s a bold, genre-bending masterpiece that exposes the hidden horrors of the food industry while celebrating love, friendship, and resistance.

A Netflix Film That Defies Easy Description

Okja is a movie that resists simple categorization. On the surface, it looks like a children’s adventure: a young girl and her oversized animal friend fighting to stay together against greedy adults. But this surface-level description undersells the film entirely.

Directed by Bong Joon-ho, one of the most daring and original filmmakers of our time, Okja is a razor-sharp blend of satire, fantasy, and social commentary. Beneath its colorful imagery lies one of the most pointed critiques of corporate greed and the food industry ever put on screen.

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The Mirando Corporation and Its Super Pig Campaign

At the center of Okja is the Mirando Corporation, a multinational giant attempting to rebrand its image from destructive polluter to eco-friendly innovator. CEO Lucy Mirando (a gleefully unhinged Tilda Swinton) leads the charge with a PR campaign promoting a so-called miracle of modern science: the “super pig.”

According to Mirando’s marketing spin, these pigs are environmentally sustainable and a solution to world hunger. But beneath the corporate sheen lies a disturbing truth—the animals have been genetically engineered for maximum size, productivity, and taste.

To sell this lie to the public, Lucy launches a global contest. Twenty-five farmers across the world will raise a super pig, and after ten years, the “best” pig will be chosen. It’s nothing more than a marketing ploy—but one that sets the stage for the film’s most powerful relationship.

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Mija and Okja: A Bond Stronger Than Corporations

Ten years later, high in the mountains of South Korea, we meet Mija (Ahn Seo Hyun), a young girl who has spent her life caring for Okja, the largest and healthiest of the Mirando pigs. Their bond is pure and deeply moving—Okja is not just livestock, but family.

When Mirando’s flamboyant zoologist Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal, hilariously channeling both Steve Irwin and Bill Nye) arrives to claim Okja for the final contest in America, Mija’s world is shattered. Determined not to lose her best friend, she embarks on a rescue mission that quickly transforms into a dark and unflinching journey through the machinery of the food industry.

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Bong Joon-ho’s Genre-Bending Vision

To describe Okja in straightforward plot terms does the film a disservice. This is a movie best experienced with fresh eyes, free of spoilers. What makes it so striking is Bong Joon-ho’s ability to twist familiar genres into something completely new.

Working with cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, Amour, The Lost City of Z), Bong creates a film that visually resembles a children’s movie, with bright colors and heightened characters. But this playful exterior makes the film’s darker turns—the cruelty of corporations, the realities of industrialized slaughter—even more devastating.

It’s this juxtaposition that gives Okja its staying power. You laugh, you feel wonder, and then you recoil in horror. Few films in recent memory have juggled tones so effectively.

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A Masterpiece with a Message

Bong Joon-ho is a filmmaker known for precision and purpose, and Okja is no exception. The glossy production design and stunning CGI aren’t just technical polish; they’re deliberate choices meant to mirror the slick surface of modern consumer culture.

By using Hollywood spectacle to tell a story about exploitation and cruelty, Bong forces viewers to confront uncomfortable truths. Okja isn’t just entertainment—it’s a mirror held up to the way we consume, packaged in the form of a heartfelt tale about a girl and her pig.

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Final Thoughts

Okja is one of the most original films of 2017 and a defining work in Bong Joon-ho’s career. It’s playful yet brutal, heartfelt yet devastating. It reminds us that movies can entertain while also challenging us to think deeply about the systems we live in—and the costs hidden behind convenience.

For viewers willing to embrace its oddities, Okja offers not just a thrilling adventure but also a bold commentary on the world we take for granted.

Streaming now on Netflix, Okja is a must-watch.

Paulina (2015) Review: Santiago Mitre’s Radical Exploration of Politics, Violence, and Female Agency

Paulina 

Directed by Santiago Mitre 

Written by Mariano Llinas, Santiago Mitre 

Starring Delores Fonzi

Release Date June 23, 2017

Santiago Mitre’s Paulina (2015), starring Dolores Fonzi, is a daring Argentine drama that interrogates politics, justice, and female agency. A challenging, award-winning film that demands critical engagement.

An Arthouse Drama with Political Urgency

Argentine director Santiago Mitre has built a reputation for politically charged cinema, and Paulina (La Patota) may be his boldest work. Premiering at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize, the film interrogates justice, violence, and autonomy through a story that refuses easy answers.

At its center is Dolores Fonzi, delivering a remarkable performance defined by restraint. Her inscrutable expressions and measured delivery create a protagonist who resists audience empathy in conventional terms, instead inviting viewers to wrestle with her choices on their own terms. She is at once frustrating, courageous, and enigmatic—a figure who embodies the contradictions of both personal and political identity.

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A Radical Narrative Structure

The film opens with one of its most impressive sequences: a ten-minute, unbroken take in which Paulina informs her father (Oscar Martínez) of her decision to abandon a promising legal career for a teaching post in a remote province. The scene’s theatricality recalls the intensity of stage drama, while the dialogue grounds us in the political and ideological tensions of contemporary Argentina.

Initially, the narrative seems to be about Paulina’s attempts to bring political education to disengaged rural students. Her lessons fail, her students resist, and the film positions her as an outsider both culturally and socially. Mitre emphasizes this dislocation by leaving the students’ dialogue unsubtitled for non-Spanish-speaking viewers, effectively aligning the audience with Paulina’s alienation.

But the film radically shifts when Paulina is raped by a gang of young men. Mitre films the assault with a matter-of-fact gaze—eschewing sensationalism or melodrama—in a style reminiscent of cinéma vérité. Just as the audience begins to process this rupture, the film fractures again, rewinding to recount events from the perspective of one of the attackers (Cristian Salguero). This structural gamble destabilizes the spectator, placing the crime within a wider social, political, and gendered context.

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Female Agency and Controversial Choices

The aftermath of the assault makes Paulina one of the most divisive Argentine films of the last decade. Instead of following a conventional trajectory of trauma and recovery, Paulina makes choices that are at once courageous, perplexing, and unsettling.

Mitre and Fonzi refuse to present her as a symbol of victimhood. Instead, she asserts a radical form of agency—one that will undoubtedly divide audiences and provoke debate. In doing so, the film interrogates how society, politics, and law frame women’s bodies and decisions. Paulinarefuses catharsis, offering instead the uncomfortable recognition that justice, morality, and healing do not conform to neat narratives.

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Placing Paulina in Mitre’s Career and Argentine Cinema

Seen within Mitre’s larger body of work, Paulina represents a continuation of his interest in the intersection of politics and individual lives. His earlier feature, The Student (2011), explored corruption and ambition within the Argentine university system. His later international success, Argentina, 1985 (2022), dramatized the historic trial of the country’s military juntas. Paulina sits between these works, smaller in scale but equally rigorous in its political engagement.

It also resonates with a tradition of Argentine cinema that uses intimate stories to explore systemic violence and moral ambiguity. Like Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman (2008), Mitre’s film refuses clear resolutions, compelling the viewer to confront uncertainty and complicity.

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Why Paulina Demands Attention

Paulina is not an easy film. It is exhausting, intellectually demanding, and deliberately alienating. Yet it is precisely in this difficulty that the film derives its power. Like much of Latin American political cinema, it compels audiences to question the systems of power that shape individual lives.

For scholars of international cinema, Paulina is essential viewing: a film that destabilizes narrative conventions, foregrounds political context, and insists on the complexity of female subjectivity. For general audiences, it may feel austere or even frustrating, but for those willing to engage, it is among the most provocative works of 21st-century Argentine film.

If you can find this film, see it. Paulina is not designed to comfort—it is designed to provoke, to disturb, and to linger long after the credits roll.

Why I Don't Love Roxanne Anymore: Revisiting Steve Martin's 1987 Romantic Comedy

Roxanne 

Directed by Fred Schepisi 

Written by Steve Martin 

Starring Steve Martin, Darryl Hannah, Rick Rossovich, Shelley Duvall

Release Date June 19th, 1987

Revisiting Steve Martin’s Roxanne (1987), a comedy once beloved now showing its flaws. A look at its dated humor, “Pratfall-A-Rama” gags, and missed potential as a great romantic comedy.

A Beloved Memory That Didn’t Hold Up

When I was ten years old, Roxanne was a laugh riot. Steve Martin’s slapstick antics, his trademark arrow-through-the-head wackiness, and the sweet romantic comedy veneer all made me adore it. But rewatching Roxanne today, on its 30th anniversary, left me only mildly amused at best, and deeply disappointed at worst.

The same thing happened when I revisited Martin’s 1980 stand-up special In Honor of Steve. My younger self delighted in the silliness, while the adult me recognized a kind of proto–anti-comedy peeking through the pratfalls. But somewhere between those two perspectives, I no longer found myself laughing.

It’s not that Steve Martin isn’t funny. He’s a comic genius. But as an adult viewer, Roxanne doesn’t land the way I remembered. Too much of the film is built on unnecessary physical comedy that distracts from the smarter, sharper humor Martin is capable of.

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The Problem of “Pratfall-A-Rama”

A pair of critics I admire, Allison Pregler and Brad Jones of Midnight Screenings, use the phrase Line-o-Rama to describe comedies that string together jokes without serving the story. Watching Roxanne, I coined my own variation: Pratfall-A-Rama.

The movie is filled with extraneous gags that stop the story cold. Take the opening scene: C.D. Bales (Martin), the fire chief of a small California town, gets into a cartoonish fight with two drunks armed with ski poles, while he wields a tennis racket. It’s mildly amusing, but awkward, and adds nothing to the story.

Later, after the pivotal love-letter scene where C.D. pours his heart out on behalf of his handsome but dim friend Chris (Rick Rossovich), the movie pauses for a bizarre sequence in which Martin pretends aliens want to abduct old ladies for sex. As a kid, I laughed. As an adult, it’s cringe-inducing. Worse, it undermines the emotional weight of the scene it follows.

Even the firefighters, a group of bumbling side characters, feel like padding. Their antics rarely serve the central romance and mostly provide more slapstick filler. Watching them pretend to struggle to hold a fire hose goes on for about an eternity. While we wait and wait to get back to the love story, the bumbling firefighters stood in the way like roadblocks to actual comedy. 

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Where the Wit Shines Through

Yet buried inside Roxanne are glimpses of the great romantic comedy it could have been. Steve Martin has undeniable chemistry with Daryl Hannah, who plays the title character with an earnest sweetness. Their first meeting—Hannah locked outside naked after chasing her cat, Martin handling the situation with witty charm—is delightful. Martin’s “This door doesn’t take Mastercard” punchline remains one of the movie’s genuine highlights.

Had Martin leaned more on this sharp wit and less on pratfalls, Roxanne might have stood tall alongside the best romantic comedies of the 1980s. Instead, its reliance on physical gags undercuts the heartfelt Cyrano de Bergerac-inspired story at its core.

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A Flawed but Fascinating Relic

I don’t hate Roxanne. There’s charm here, and Martin’s talent is undeniable. But watching it now, I can’t ignore the film’s flaws—or its uncomfortable elements, like the deception at the heart of the romance that plays very differently through modern eyes.

What’s left is a movie that’s occasionally funny, sometimes sweet, often awkward, and ultimately disappointing. Roxanne could have been a sophisticated, witty classic. Instead, it remains a relic of its time: a comedy stuck between slapstick silliness and romantic sincerity, never fully committing to either.

Revisiting Duncan Jones’ Source Code (2011)

Source Code (2011)

Directed by Duncan Jones

Written by Ben Ripley

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Jeffrey Wright, Vera Farmiga

Release Date: April 20, 2011

Duncan Jones’ Source Code (2011) is a sharp, emotional, time-loop thriller that blends suspense, science fiction, and existential questions into one of the most inventive films of its era. Here’s why it still holds up more than a decade later.

The Sci-Fi Mystery You Should Know as Little as Possible About

The less you know going into Source Code, the more you’ll enjoy it. Duncan Jones’ follow-up to Moon is an ingenious sci-fi thriller that manages to surprise even in an era obsessed with spoilers. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan, it’s a sleek, tightly wound puzzle that deserves mention among the best science fiction films of the 2010s.

Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a Chicago commuter train, disoriented and confused. The woman across from him, Christina (Monaghan), seems to know him — but she calls him by a different name. None of the other passengers are familiar. Then he looks into the train’s bathroom mirror and sees a face that isn’t his own. Moments later, the train explodes.

When Colter regains consciousness, he’s strapped inside a strange pod, communicating with a woman named Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) via intercom. She and her superior, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), inform him that a terrorist bomb has destroyed the train — and his mission is to go back into those eight minutes before the explosion, identify the bomber, and report back before it happens again.

A High-Concept Thriller That Actually Works

That’s all you really need to know. Source Code is one of those rare high-concept sci-fi thrillers that doesn’t just rely on its premise — it earns it. The film plays with ideas of time travel, consciousness, and moral consequence without losing sight of its human core.

Duncan Jones, working from Ben Ripley’s clever script, handles the film’s shifting timelines with precision and energy. Like a modern-day Groundhog Day laced with paranoia and military-grade tension, Source Code builds a world with its own set of time travel rules — and then exploits those rules for maximum suspense.

The brilliance lies in how those rules turn ordinary people into obstacles. As Colter races against time, the unaware passengers he’s trying to protect become accidental antagonists. The result is both thrilling and tragic.

Why It Still Resonates

What makes Source Code stand out today is how seriously it treats its pseudo-science. Gyllenhaal, Farmiga, and Wright play it completely straight, grounding the story’s metaphysical leaps in real emotion. Their conviction sells every impossible moment. Either you buy into what they’re selling, or you don’t — but if you do, it’s a ride worth taking.

Jones’ direction and Ripley’s script ensure that even when Source Code veers into the unbelievable, it never loses coherence or heart. Beneath the genre mechanics is a story about sacrifice, identity, and the strange hope of second chances.

Final Thoughts

Clever. Emotional. Rewatchable.

Source Code is one of the best sci-fi thrillers of the 2010s, a film that rewards close attention and keeps you guessing until the end. Don’t let anyone spoil its secrets — go in blind, and you might find yourself as surprised as Colter Stevens when he first opens his eyes on that train.

31 Days of Horror: Zombi 2 (1979) — Lucio Fulci’s Tropical Nightmare of Blood and Rot

Zombi 2 (Zombie)

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Written by: Elisa Briganti

Starring: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Al Cliver, Auretta Gay, Olga Karlatos

Release Date: August 29, 1979

Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979) is a gory, sun-soaked horror classic born from a cash grab that somehow became one of the greatest zombie films ever made. Here’s why it still shocks, disgusts, and mesmerizes horror fans nearly 50 years later.

The Italian “Sequel” That Wasn’t

Lucio Fulci may have been an opportunist — a director ready to chase a trend for a quick profit — but Zombi 2 proves he was also an artist of atmosphere and excess. Despite being marketed as an unofficial sequel to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (released in Italy as Zombi), Fulci’s film has its own grimy identity: a gory, gross, occasionally brilliant cult classic that helped define the Italian horror boom.

This isn’t just another undead invasion — it’s a fever dream of decay, voodoo, and madness. It’s the kind of movie where logic takes a vacation, and all that’s left is blood, guts, and pure filmmaking audacity.

A Boat, a Corpse, and a Terrifying Discovery

The film begins on an eerily abandoned sailboat drifting into New York Harbor. Two NYPD officers board to investigate, only to find something far worse than smugglers — a rotting corpse that suddenly attacks. One officer ends up dead, and the “body” is dumped into the water, but the nightmare is just beginning.

The boat is traced back to Dr. Bowles, father of Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow — yes, Mia’s sister). When Anne learns of her father’s mysterious disappearance, she teams up with journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch). Their search leads them to a remote island in the Antilles — a place of sun, superstition, and the dead that refuse to stay buried.

Welcome to the Island of the Dead

With the help of two vacationers, Brian and Susan (Al Cliver and Auretta Gay), Anne and Peter sail to the island of Matul, where they meet Dr. David Menard. Menard believes he’s fighting a tropical disease, though the locals whisper of voodoo curses. As corpses rise from the ground, Fulci makes it clear — this isn’t science fiction, it’s hell on earth.

Let’s be honest: logic is not Zombi 2’s strong suit. But what Fulci lacks in narrative precision, he makes up for in visual insanity. The film’s pacing might wander, but its horror imagery — rotting conquistadors, dripping maggots, and blood that looks too thick to be fake — is unforgettable.

Gore, Glory, and the Shark Fight Scene

Zombi 2 is infamous for its effects, crafted with an almost perverse love for texture and decay. The makeup rivals the best of Rick Baker’s early work, especially the infamous Spanish Conquistador sequence — where centuries-old corpses rise from their graves to interrupt Anne and Peter’s first kiss.

And then there’s that scene: a zombie versus a shark, filmed underwater with a real shark and a stuntman in zombie makeup. It’s absurd, dangerous, and weirdly beautiful — the perfect metaphor for Fulci’s entire filmography.

Also unforgettable (and nearly unwatchable) is Olga Karlatos’ death scene — a slow-motion nightmare of impalement that remains one of the most disturbing moments in horror history.

The Final March of the Dead

What fans remember most, however, is the haunting final image: an army of zombies marching across the Brooklyn Bridge as a terrified radio announcer describes the collapse of civilization. It’s both ludicrous and chilling — the apocalypse realized through Fulci’s grainy lens and grim imagination.

Nearly half a century later, Zombi 2 stands as a defining work of Italian horror — gruesome, ambitious, and unrepentantly grotesque. It’s a film that shouldn’t work as well as it does, and yet it remains hypnotically watchable.

Lucio Fulci may have set out to make a knockoff, but what he created was something else entirely: a blood-soaked masterpiece of exploitation art.

Why Zombi 2 Still Matters

Because horror fans crave authenticity — not perfection. Zombi 2 is messy, loud, and flawed, but it’s alive in every frame. You can feel Fulci’s fascination with death, decay, and cinematic mayhem. It’s a movie that dares to disgust you — and dares you to keep watching anyway.

31 Days of Horror: Cujo (1983) — The Day the Monster Was Man’s Best Friend

Cujo

Directed by: Lewis Teague

Written by: Don Carlos Dunaway, Barbara Turner

Starring: Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Ed Lauter

Release Date: August 12, 1983

Stephen King’s Cujo (1983) turns man’s best friend into a nightmare. Dee Wallace delivers one of her most intense performances in this tense, claustrophobic horror classic.

“It’s Not a Monster Movie… Until It Is”

You can argue that Cujo isn’t a monster movie. A dog getting rabies is a tragic story, one loaded with dread and sorrow rather than supernatural evil. But as written by Stephen King and directed by Lewis Teague, Cujo plays with the same tension and structure as the best monster movies.

In fact, having seen Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I can say that Cujo is every bit as frightening as the Indo-Raptor — just with more heartbreak and realism.

A Family in Crisis

The film opens with a child’s primal fear: monsters in the closet. Danny Pintauro, years before his fame on Who’s the Boss?, plays Tad Trenton, a little boy who will be forever changed by the end of this story.

His parents, Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh Kelly, are already in turmoil. Donna (Wallace) is having an affair; Vic (Kelly) is about to find out. The emotional strain in their marriage sets the tone for a film where every relationship is on the verge of breaking — just like the calm before Cujo’s storm.

The Bite That Starts It All

When Vic needs his car fixed, he takes it to local mechanic Joe Camber (Ed Lauter), a gruff man living on a rural property with his massive St. Bernard, Cujo.

In the opening minutes, we watch Cujo chase a rabbit into a hole and get bitten by bats. It’s a quietly horrifying scene, and Teague’s direction foreshadows the transformation to come. The moment that bite sinks in, the countdown begins.

Teague wisely builds Cujo’s descent into madness slowly. We see glimpses of infection, that bloodied snout, those heavy breaths — and then, about 45 minutes in, Cujo finally snaps. The result is one of the most terrifying creature reveals in 1980s horror.

The Siege at the Farm

The heart of Cujo is a claustrophobic standoff between Donna, Tad, and the now-rabid dog. When Donna’s car breaks down at the Camber farm, she becomes trapped inside her vehicle with her terrified son while Cujo circles outside, blood and drool dripping from his snout.

Teague shoots the sequence with animalistic intensity, often from the dog’s point of view. The audience knows what’s coming long before Donna does — and when Cujo attacks, it’s pure, primal terror.

For nearly half the film, we’re locked in that car with Donna and Tad, feeling every scream, every drop of sweat, every breath of exhaustion. It’s Rear Window by way of Jaws, and Wallace sells every moment.

A Monster Without Malice

The brilliance of Cujo is that it’s not a story about evil — it’s a story about innocence corrupted. Cujo isn’t a villain; he’s a victim. The horror comes not from malice but from inevitability.

That’s what makes the film’s final act so brutal. The terror is tangible, but so is the sadness. It’s the kind of horror King does best — human and heartbreaking.

Final Thoughts: B-Movie Terror at Its Best

Cujo isn’t perfect. The family drama early on feels clunky and disconnected, and the subplot about Vic’s ad career drags the pace. But once Cujo goes full beast, the movie transforms into something primal and unforgettable.

The effects are grisly and grounded, with the makeup and costuming on the dog creating a disturbingly lifelike depiction of rabies-induced madness. Cujo may not rank among the top-tier King adaptations, but it’s one of the most viscerally frightening.

For drive-in horror fans and lovers of creature features with emotional bite, Cujo remains a terrifying standout of early ’80s cinema.

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.