Tron: Ares follows a security AI, Ares, as it seeks out the “Permanence Code,” a way for programs from the digital world to enter reality permanently. The movie contains lots of (mostly bloodless) action violence, and some language pops up, too. But overall, Tron: Ares is a fun, straightforward sci-fi adventure that families with teens can comfortably navigate.
In 1982, software engineer Kevin Flynn imagined the world living inside his computer: clusters of information that took the form of ships and motorcycles, with circuits like freeways. He dreamed of going inside the machine and exploring that “digital frontier.”
Years later, two rival tech giants, ENCOM and Dillinger Systems, now seek to build upon Flynn’s work. But they have a different dream: not to go to the virtual world but to bring it to reality.
And they have the tools to make it happen … sort of. Through advanced 3D printing, both companies can turn computer programs into physical objects.
The possibilities are limitless—too bad those recently rendered ones and zeros are not.
See, anything of digital origin brought into the human world has a strict shelf life of 29 minutes. After that, it crumbles to dust. Oh, you can reconstitute the program again, but only for another 29 minutes.
ENCOM and Dillinger Systems, helmed by Eve Kim and Julian Dillinger, respectively, are looking to break through that limitation—something they refer to as the “Permanence Code.”
And Eve may have just found it.
With the Permanence Code in hand, Eve rushes back to ENCOM, ready to revolutionize the technological world. But Julian, who’s not above some good old corporate espionage, doesn’t plan to let his rival have the code without a fight.
Julian constitutes his best artificial intelligence security program, Ares, and sends it to hunt down Eve and retrieve the Permanence Code, whatever it takes.
But Ares’ pursuit of the code (and Eve) leads to it questioning its programming—and becoming more human that anyone could imagine.
Ares’ “malfunction” doesn’t lead to hostility toward humans but benevolence. He develops something of a moral conscience, sacrificing personal power to break from his wrongful directives. He repeatedly puts himself at risk to save others—be they flesh-and-blood or digitally constructed.
Eve loved her late sister (who died of cancer) dearly and carries on her sister’s humanitarian work. ENCOM, under Eve’s direction, believes that the purpose of AI is to “uplift humanity.” She seeks to use the Permanence Code for good.
Someone warns against chasing discovery and achievement at the cost of relationships, saying that when you “move fast, you leave stuff behind.” Characters work together to stop a destructive threat.
The Tron films have always contained quasi-religious elements, and Tron: Ares is no exception. Julian is Ares’ creator in a literal sense (he programmed the AI) but presents himself as a godlike figure to Ares in the digital world, too. Ares bows before his creator at one point.
The advanced 3D printing machines used in the film are said to create “organic material out of nowhere.” Despite that description, I don’t think the film really intends to go against the principle of mass conservation, but the technology does raise some interesting questions. Specifically, are the programs brought into the human world actually alive? Ares’ progression throughout the film suggests the answer might be yes.
A connection could also be drawn between Ares choosing to reject his immoral programming and humanity’s own battle with sin—though sin is a corruption, not the intent, of our original design.
Ares draws his name from the mythological Greek god of war. Another Dillinger AI is called “Athena,” named for another Greek deity. A dichotomy is drawn between the two AIs: Athena believes that her purpose is dictated through her programming, while Ares believes that choice transcends directives and purpose must be discovered for oneself.
The consciousness of a formerly human character has become a (quite literal) “ghost in the machine,” taking glowing, ethereal form. Another character tells a sibling in a premortem video that she is “still here, even if you can’t see me.” Someone talks about intelligent life coming from inside computers.
Ares makes a vague reference to some of Eve’s “highly personal texts” he had examined while researching her. At one point, Eve sarcastically refers to Ares as her boyfriend. Someone jokes that a woman had a “crush” on Kevin Flynn.
Tron: Ares packs its plot full of action and violence. There are high-speed chases and explosions aplenty. Vehicles fire lasers and crash into flaming wreckage. Characters duel with disks and trails of light, slicing, dicing and otherwise dismembering each other on various occasions. Much of that onscreen violence is bloodless, happening to digital characters whose “deaths” involve simply shattering into pixelated bits. However, there are times when human characters are threatened by their digital counterparts.
When digital characters exceed their 29 minutes in the real world, they suddenly—and painfully—crumble into ash, which could upset more sensitive viewers.
Ares’ training in the digital world consists of fighting (and dying) repeatedly to hone his combat skills, a process that seems to distress the AI.
Julian orders his digital underlings to extract the Permanence Code from Eve’s memories, which would kill her. He wants the code so he can profit from mass-produced weapons of war, and he’s not afraid to send those weapons into the human world to get what he wants, regardless of the collateral damage. He treats his programs as expendable and deletes them (effectively killing them) without thought.
A woman is stabbed, and we briefly see her blood-soaked shirt. Ares beats up a few of Dillinger’s human thugs. A man is thrown through a glass wall.
Portions of the virtual world are hit with massive explosions, which (temporarily) destroy all characters nearby.
One s-word is used. God’s name is misused eleven times, paired once with “d—.” We hear an additional “d—” and two uses of “h—.”
Eve and Julian drink. One character at a party is seen with a beer in hand.
Ares defends his choice to hack into Eve’s personal information, claiming it’s tame compared to his directive to kill her. In a pinch, Eve offers a cashier a large sum of money to use his phone before she and Ares steal the man’s car.
We hear that Eve’s sister died of cancer. In many ways, Eve is still grieving that loss. She tells Ares, “The things that make life great are the things that make it excruciating: love … loss.”
Companies launch cyberattacks against their competitors to cripple servers and steal sensitive information.
Julian believes any wrongdoing he commits will be forgiven once he makes a technological breakthrough. A man calls a collection of old hardware “junk” before apologizing for being “insensitive to [Ares’] ancestors.” Ares draws a connection between himself and Frankenstein’s monster.
Tron: Ares is the latest sequel/reboot in Disney’s long-running yet sluggishly paced sci-fi adventure series. (To be fair, at least the 15 years between Ares and Legacy was quicker than the 28 years separating Legacy from the original Tron.)
So, how does the new film compare to its predecessors?
Well, it’s not as cutting-edge as the original 1982 film, whose groundbreaking visual effects were disqualified from an Oscar nomination because the Academy considered the use of computer animation to be “cheating.” (Seriously.) It’s not as slick and stylish as 2010’s Tron: Legacy. (And it really misses that Daft Punk-scored soundtrack.)
Aside from a few digital sojourns, Tron: Ares focuses more on the real world than “the Grid.” That makes sense for the story, as Ares’ quest for corporeal permanence drives much of the action. But I can’t help but feel that, in the process, some of the technological magic is lost.
Tron: Ares doesn’t really do or say anything new—but it doesn’t come with an overload of content issues either.
Personal gripes aside, the film delivers as a fun popcorn flick that families with teens can enjoy relatively worry-free. Action violence is the main content question here: Ares is comparable to a Marvel flick but without (almost any) blood. Profanity pops up, too, including one s-word; but overall, the language here is refreshingly restrained.
The spiritual content found in Tron: Ares should be relatively simple for families to navigate, as well. There are some light musings on life, purpose and the impact of artificial intelligence. It never digs deeply into any of those questions—which is a little disappointing, given how much of a hot-button topic AI is these days—but not every movie has to say something big or important.
For those looking for an uncomplicated adventure full of flashy sci-fi action that isn’t riddled with content bugs, Tron: Ares could be the, ahem, program you’re looking for.
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Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
