“Tron: Ares” may have the tagline “No Going Back” but Disney doesn’t like to leave money on the table. So here we are, going back with a third entry in a cult franchise that’s somewhat trapped between the human and digital worlds.
Ride-or-die Tron-iacs are going to need a few things to be happy — the cool motorbikes that kick off light walls, those glowing Frisbee things attached to everyone’s back, and, of course, Jeff Bridges. Director Joachim Rønning gives us all those things and much, much more. Maybe too much.
“Tron: Ares” bites off so much — a light cycle chase through downtown Vancouver, a laser attack by a massive, hovering vehicle, a Jet Ski pursuit, dozens of crushed police cars and endless flipping between Earth and no less than three computer grids — that it gets a bit deafening and numbing after two hours, like a late-stage Marvel movie.
How do you go back and yet forward at the same time? The filmmakers have rather cleverly done that by incorporating plot points from the first two movies and building out with new characters and blurring the divide between flesh and digital worlds.
We begin with a financial battle between two massive technology firms — Emcom and Dillinger (think Apple versus Google) — who have both come up against the same artificial intelligence ceiling. They can create anything they like in the real world using what looks like 3D printers using lasers but it lasts only for 29 minutes before collapsing into ash. (Twenty-nine minutes is also the limit to our attention span for this plot.)
The leaders of both firms — Greta Lee, playing Encom’s white hat hacker and Evan Peters, playing Dillinger’s very evil CEO — are in a race to find the hidden Permanence Code that Bridges’ Kevin Flynn created back when the world ran on floppy disks. The fate of the planet rests on whoever finds it. If it’s Encom, health care for everyone and a cure for cancer; if it’s Dillinger, a new military of superhuman fighters and, we guess, fascism.
Enter Jared Leto, who is a Dillinger’s AI master control, executing all his CEO boss’ orders to the letter and who is often reminded that he’s expendable. He and his scary deputy (Jodie Turner-Smith) start off robotic, but there’s something weird in his wiring — he starts to have all the feels and yearn to be real. (“Tron: Ares” has now officially become a reboot of Pinocchio.)
Leto does well here as the title character, able to deliver a few good lines while executing a rock star strut in a skintight suit, making slow-mo somersaults to avoid deadly light discs or powering his light cycle at dizzying speeds. But it’s Lee who steals the show, a very human action heroine for 2025.
The screenplay — by Jesse Wigutow, with a story by David DiGilio and Wigutow — adds odd pockets of humor, but not enough and sometimes stashed right next to a key figure bleeding out. There are references to “The Wizard of Oz” and “Frankenstein” and the writers make Leto’s soldier a serious fan of ’80s synth pop, especially Depeche Mode, which is a call-back to the music swirling at the time of the 1982 original.
If we’re talking music, we’ve got to talk about Nine Inch Nails, who have taken over soundtrack duties from Daft Punk, who composed “Tron: Legacy” in 2010. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are a perfect fit, layering menacing, mechanical sounds on top of thick bars of synth. (They even get on-screen cameos as fighter pilots.)
All this struggle and synths — which sometimes feels like an ad for Ducati motorcycles — peaks when The Dude himself appears. Bridges is the payoff, the constancy in a franchise that desperately needs his cool charm. “Fascinating,” he says with a smile as he meets Leto. Suddenly, going back is worth it.
“Tron: Ares,” a Walt Disney Studios release that hits theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for violence and action. Running time: 119 minutes. Three stars out of four.
