TRON: Ares | The Deight Night Review

TRON: Ares (2025, Joachim Ronning, Disney)

Much like its 1980s brethren, Blade Runner, TRON is a cult classic that helped give birth to the Cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction. Not unlike Ridley Scott's less alien infested sci-fi cornerstone, TRON has been given it's own modern reboot before in the form of TRON: Legacy in 2010, with (the then less known) Joseph Kosinski at the helm with Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde starring, along with the perfectly picked Daft Punk providing a techno wave score. As is the way with many cult classics brought back to the big screen, Legacy proved to not be the success that Disney had hoped and the franchise was put back on the shelf, ever to live as a ride at Disneyland and not much else. 

Skip forward another 15 years and, with the help of Jared Leto as a producer and star and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (credited under Reznor's band name - Nine Inch Nails) providing their signature industrial punk sound for the score, Disney are hoping to revitalise the franchise once more with TRON: Ares. In the franchise's long delayed threequel, Ares (Jared Leto), a near indestructible security programme, is born in the Dillinger Central Processing Unit - owned and controlled by Dillinger CEO, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). He's assigned the mantle of Master Control, the programme in charge of the CPU and the Grid's cybersecurity, where he's assisted by more cybersecurity programmes of his kind, the most senior of which being Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith). Though, his creator, Julian Dillinger has made a breakthrough in military technology and is able to bring Ares and Athena to the real world as their indestructible selves - as well as their light cycles and tanks. However, he's only able to bring them "to life" for 29 minutes. To make their existence last any longer, he needs the permanence code - which is being developed by Eve Kim (Greta Lee) the new CEO of Encom, successor to the Flynn dynasty (Jeff Bridges and Garrett Hedlund). Ares is assigned to capture Eve Kim in order to obtain the permanence code, but along the way he begins to question his existence and what it is he's actually meant to be doing. 

From the moment, TRON: Ares opens, it becomes clear why Disney wanted to revitalise this franchise in the modern day with more modern visual effects technology. The effects that are on display in this film are beyond game changing and they produce visuals that can only really be seen in a TRON film. Whether it be in the sequences in the neon soaked Grid or when the programmes haunt the streets of the surface world, TRON: Ares boasts some of the most incredible sights to behold on the big screen this year. It's truly stunning what the special effects team have been able to produce and it's an absolute must to see in IMAX, where the film's unbelievable sights can be seen at the biggest possible ratio. What's also worth a visit to the IMAX is the film's immense score, Nine Inch Nails have curated once of their best scores to date, each scene being accompanied by a gloriously hypnotic cyberpunk beat that erupts out of the speakers and sends vibrations straight through your soul. It was hard to replace Daft Punk as they were pretty much born to score TRON, but Nine Inch Nails do their very best to compete with the legendary French duo and in so doing craft one of this year's best sounds. Suffice to say, TRON: Ares is an absolute treat of a cinema trip and isn't to be missed. 

No TRON film has ever really been complimented on its story, and Ares carries on that trend with a plot that's certainly derivative but nevertheless entertaining. Taking inspiration from all sorts of classics from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (which it directly references) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, it's definitely going to have story points that will be familiar to anyone who's seen (and read) some of the cornerstones of science fiction. However, themes like what it means to be human and the purpose of life are never stale - especially in such uncertain times - and though the script isn't always intelligent enough to tackle these more subtly, it's still a pleasure to watch Ares' life affirming journey where he goes from relentless soldier to a Depeche Mode loving freedom fighter, brought to life by Jared Leto's charming and modest performance. Indeed, seeing Ares go from villain to hero - in a way akin to the T-800 - is exciting to witness too, though his moral switch occurs quite quickly, it's still intriguing to see a story from the perspective of the antagonist - even if it is for a brief opening half hour.

While TRON: Ares doesn't quite break ground in terms of its story, the film's visuals very much do. The film shows off some of the best visual effects of the year and, along with its phenomenal score, is an absolute behemoth of a cinematic spectacle and is a true testament to the power of cinema to transport its audience to another world. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

TRON: Ares releases in UK Cinemas on October 10th