Tron: Ares (2025) Movie Review

Hello

everyone and welcome to the concession stand here on the KB radio network.

I am your host Kevin Reed and this is the review of Tron.

Ares the third film in the Tron films franchise and in this version we have Jared Leto,

Greta Lee,

Evan Peters,

Jeff Bridges reprises his role from the previous two

Tron films and in this version mankind encounters AI beings for the first time when a highly sophisticated program named Ares leaves the digital world

for a dangerous mission in the real world this film is directed by johan ronning who uh his previous two films were uh powers of the caribbean dead man tells no tale and

uh magnificent mistress of evil so he is a big disney guy apparently they go to him to uh be a part of their franchises,

but he dives into this world

that is i don't know man there's something funny about the tron films it's not globally box office big juggernaut type film franchise but for some strange reason it

is just a little engine that can you know it just keeps chugging along and it has its fan base and i i can say that i'm a part of that fan base i i like

this film series i don't know why you know it's boring at times it's very uh techno jargon that i can't follow but i enjoy those movies for what they are uh i remember seeing the original tron when it came out and i'm dating myself but

i remember watching that movie and was just in awe of that movie because up to that point you didn't get special effects

special effects to that level you know entire uh digital digital set pieces and uh uh costumes and stuff like that with the with the uh grid cycles and all it was just it

was like euphoria to me you know it was i wasn't i was literally thrown into another world watching that movie back in 1982 or 83 is when I actually saw it.

I ain't seen when it first came out,

but

I saw it in 80 83 and I was

I was just blown away.

I couldn't believe that this was on the big screen.

This was a actual real thing

Nowadays, yeah,

it's common in film.

You know,

you see you see stuff like that in romantic comedies as far as the digital digital effects that was in that movie but

You know,

you go back and watch it,

and it is clearly dated,

as it should be.

I mean,

it was 1982.

It wasn't ILM at its greatest,

you know?

They didn't have dinosaurs walking around like in Jurassic Park,

or,

you know,

the Star Wars level of digital effects.

But it was nice,

nonetheless,

for what it was.

Tron Legacy,

it was...

it was an improvement i did enjoy it a lot but it it didn't really check the boxes in certain areas and neither did the original you know it was more of a visual feast but uh second one it had a story it

was intriguing and i did enjoy it for what it was that leads us to tron aries and i enjoyed it for multiple reasons.

One,

number one,

and I know this is gonna be

everybody's go-to here i don't care if you hated the movie i know everybody universally will celebrate the music the uh nine x nine inch nail score here oh my god i

was a little trepidatious going into this you know because daft punk did such a fantastic job with tron legacy and

I'm like who can top that?

you know how can you top that if you're not going to bring back deaf punk but deaf punk broke up and so they they're not going to reunite just to do the score to tron aries but i don't think they could have did the score to tron aries because tron aries is

a different type of film that needed a different sound and nine inch nails was perfect before this film oh my god the music i don't care if you're

not into uh grunge rocks or the

90s i don't i can care less fortunately for me i grew up in the

90s i grew up with the nirvanas and the nine inch nails and all that good stuff so i i listened to all that it you know along with my uh uh hip-hop but it was it was just tailor-made for me and i was a big fan of nine inch nails still is and

trent rezzler

Who's done scores for multiple films,

so it's not like they're new to this him and oh my god I can't I can't remember his partner's name right now

But they've done the scores for films before

Multiple films so this isn't nothing new,

but this was nine-inch nails

This was this was tailor-made for this movie perfect perfect score

for this film the score gets an a plus it's not even worth debating also getting the a plus is the visuals this is a visual feast uh-huh the visual effects here now i've seen it in imax uh

if any movie was born for imax it was tron aries if you see it in any other screen and no disrespect to that and you know if you're not around anywhere

that offers a premium screen like uh imax uh god bless you i i wish that uh things were better to whereas you could have watched it in this format watching it in imax just

brought a different level to it for me i appreciated the film more i i didn't read any reviews or watch any reviews or anything like that before i went to see

see it because i knew basically what people would say and so i waited till i left the theater and on the way home i listened to a couple of reviews just to get other people's opinions of the film and nobody's

opinion matched mine it's almost to the point where i'm like man i don't think i should review this movie because nobody is going to agree with me but the whole point of me doing this show is to give

my opinion you know i'm not doing this to have people agree with me or try to talk people into you know how i feel about a certain film or situation or a political view or anything like that that's not my goal here i'm just giving my opinion and

so i'm listening to these reviews and i'm like man this is brutal man they'll get i mean there are some brutal reviews of this film Like it's the worst movie of 2025.

I kid you not and you've probably seen it and feel the same way but unfortunately

I don't feel that way

I don't feel that way now I'm not saying there's one of the best films of 2025 this movie has problems it it does have some problems that I'm going to touch in on but overall

I went into this movie blind not looking for anything substantial

I was just looking for a visual

feats and a great soundtrack and i got both of them and so i was satisfied walking i felt like my money was well spent normally when i leave out the theater i feel like i was robbed i don't feel that way this time i feel like i actually owe the theater money and

that's a rarity this was a great film uh uh as as far as action as far as the cinematography uh the acting the acting was good

it wasn't great it was good the actors here were basically in here to play a role you know uh i i don't want to call them props but they're just above props you know what i'm saying uh uh jared leto who plays aries in this film a

lot of slings and arrows get pointed at jared leto i don't understand why i love jared leto i think jared leto is Yep.

very underrated actor and that's saying a lot being as though this man owns an academy award but Dave people

feel like he's a horrible actor ever since joker they feel like he's the worst actor in hollywood i don't get it and i spoiler alert i actually liked his joker you know now it wasn't heath ledger no he

wasn't trying to be heath ledger he was trying to have a different take of joker and if you follow joker in the comic books there are different versions of joker he was just playing that version of the Joker.

I liked him.

But...

Here,

I liked him again.

You know,

he wasn't,

it wasn't anything special to what he brought to the role.

The role didn't require him to be deep.

It required him to be a computer program.

And that's what he was.

He was a computer program.

Greta Lee,

our human lead here,

she was all right for the little that she's given.

You know,

she's not given a whole lot in this movie to do.

Other than a few lines of dialogue,

a few scenes with,

uh,

they carry some emotion that she handled fairly well.

Uh,

but the majority of her screen time is running from running from grid cycles and,

uh,

digital missiles and whatnot.

It,

that was basically her,

her role in this field.

It wasn't a lot to it,

but.

it was good to see her in it you know and she did the best she could with what she got evan peters evan peters is always money you can't go wrong with evan peters evan peters is it's just an excellent actor you know and the role that he plays here as as the antagonist as our i

guess you could say lead villain he is um he is playing the techno billionaire uh

evil boss type deal really really good and you know what i thought about looking at him playing this role he is basically in this movie he is what jesse eisenberg was trying to be in

batman v superman as lex luther that's what evan peters is in this movie he is but he's better he's what lex luther should have been in batman v superman it

was a nice villain role for him you know he wasn't mustache trailing per se he was just a notch above that it could have went into cheesy category but when you have a uh actor of the weight of evan peters he can bring it to that just

that next level to kind of get it out of that uh shameful realm if you will uh jody turner smith as athena in this movie really shocked me

I just thought she was in it to be in it,

but she had much more to be or to do,

I should say,

in this film.

And she did it well.

I can see her,

you know,

while I was watching the movie.

I can see her if they want to go this route.

Since this is a Disney film and since Marvel is owned by Disney,

I can see her as Storm.

I can I can feel her as storm

Watching her as Athena in this film.

She almost stole the movie almost stole the movie for me

Actually, if I really sat down and thought about it,

she probably did steal the movie for me.

I enjoyed her probably the most So yeah,

I would give her that I'll give her that title.

She stole the movie She had an excellent role not much weight to it.

It was underwritten

but once again all of these characters were underwritten but these were very talented actors that was in this movie able to bring the most out of the role that they were given and so with that being said uh it was decent very

decent with the acting and now when we get to the story well before we get to the story there's one more actor here and i'm about to get into the story as a negative but I gotta touch in one acting

as the negative but it wasn't the acting it was the fact that he was even in the movie and that's jeff bridges and jeff bridges was just in this movie just to connect the other two movies he's only in it for one scene and it was you

know it wasn't it wasn't uh essential to the story you know it was it didn't really do anything you know

It was there for nostalgia.

That's all it was there for.

Just to say,

oh,

Jeff Bridges,

you know,

there's Flynn.

That's it.

There was no other reason to have him in the film.

But,

I mean,

look,

look.

Find that he was in it.

Felt good to see Jeff.

Who doesn't love Jeff Bridges?

It's the dude,

man.

That's Lebowski.

Come on.

We love Jeff Bridges.

But he was really there for nostalgia reasons.

And that's it.

that being said moving on to the story the story was it was it was flat it did not have any substance to this story there was something there there was something there but i

don't know i don't know if it was left on the cutting room floor or not i'm leaning towards it was left on the cutting room floor because you had an actor in this movie who he isn't i would say well known

but he's known you know cameron monaghan who was in this movie for 2.9 seconds and that was it and and i'm sitting there like that's it you're gonna have him in this movie and

that's it there's there's gotta be more to this character there's gotta be more and that's where that's where i got kind of iffy towards the i think that was in the first half of the movie

and i'm like ah there's got to be more in this movie it did but they're leaving it on the cutting room floor i think they left a lot on the floor uh to focus more on the action because there's a lot of action in this film uh more action i think in this one film than tron

and tron legacy caban there's a lot of action and i'm not mad at that but i think the story suffered for that

With that being said,

another flaw

I would say about this movie is the fact it don't connect to the other two films.

Now,

Jeff Bridges is in it to connect,

you know,

to make it connect to the other films.

But that's it.

And that's the only reason he's in the movie.

Like I said before,

there's nothing else.

Like,

we left off at the end of Tron Legacy where they did set up something to move forward with the item.

what they call them the isotopes or i could be off on that it's been a minute since i've seen legacy but uh they had the other programs that can actually live outside of the digital world in the real world and that was that and we move on to this film and the digital programs

can't live outside the real world and they're fighting to get you know get that rectified and that's the whole plot of this movie.

And it kind of it kind of pooh poohs on the second movie.

And I'm like,

OK,

didn't we establish that they can in the second film?

And they didn't even acknowledge it until the very end of this movie where we get a little a little Easter egg.

But other than that,

no,

no.

And I'm like,

I don't know.

Now,

with that being said,

I guess they're trying to.

Set it apart,

but you didn't set it apart because you had Easter eggs and you had Jeff Bridges in it.

So it's,

you know,

what are we playing with here?

Are we playing basketball or football?

You know,

you can't play football on a basketball court.

That doesn't make sense.

So that's where

I got kind of thrown off by,

but...

i just took it for what it is and just say you know okay we're moving in a different direction because this film clearly sets up another film clearly sets up another film and i'll be there for it i'll be there for it it

looks like it's going to get really really exciting um moving forward if if they go along with it now i don't know i guess it depends on box office but we'll see how that plays out.

like i said this isn't a money-making franchise here so uh cross your fingers on that but it did set up something bigger in the future if they decide to move forward with this franchise with

all that being said i had a really good time with this movie it was fun it was action-packed i mean i never got bored at all at no point in this film did i get bored this was a visually

stunning looking movie i i cannot i cannot believe how beautiful it looks

i mean it is some of the best visual effects i've seen in a long long time it looks like they really spent a pretty penny on this movie and i think the budget of this film was like 180 i could be off but uh i think it was around that close to 200 million to

make it um i think the majority of that went into the digital effects the it looks it looks amazing the cinematography was amazing.

the direction was amazing i mean it was well paced um the story was the story but the story moved along it did move along uh it's about two hours long but it didn't feel like it was two hours long and

if you plan to go out and see it in a theater i'll employ you to go see it on a premium screen uh imax in particular it is worth the extra whatever it is to go see it in imax it

It is visually stunning.

Tron Ares gets a letter grade of a B+.

Yeah,

it is good in my humble opinion.

I mean,

I wasn't looking for much.

I wasn't looking for a deep philosophical movie.

I was looking for exactly what I got.

You know,

the visuals,

the music,

and the action.

Check,

check,

and check.

But I would like to know,

what did you think of Tron Aries?

And do you plan to go see Tron Aries?

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Network. Everybody,

thank you for joining me for this review of Tron

Aries. I want you all to know that I love you.

Continue to love everyone.

And until we speak again,

you all be blessed.

Tron: Ares (2025) Movie Review

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