On last Friday’s KVNU For the People Movie Show, we dove into TRON: ARES—the long-awaited return to neon grids and disc wars. My grade: B. It’s a sleek, ear-thumping sequel where the soundtrack/score powers the movie hand-in-hand with the visuals, and the breakout is Greta Lee, proving she can swing from PAST LIVES to big-budget sci-fi without a scrape.
Plot (spoiler-light): A highly sophisticated program named Ares (Jared Leto) is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission that upends first contact between humans and AI. Corporate agendas collide—ENCOM’s new CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has her own aims—while Ares wrestles with emerging emotions that complicate the job.
Why it works (mostly): The Nine Inch Nails score throbs through the chassis and keeps momentum high; paired with the glassy visuals, it’s the movie’s heartbeat. And Greta Lee is the star—cool, focused, quietly ferocious.
Where it lands: As a follow-up to TRON: LEGACY, it’s serviceable—slick world-building and moments of awe—but not a paradigm shift. Whether we get another runaround the Grid will come down to money: this is an expensive sandbox, and future life depends on how a spendy production pencils out.
Who’s who in Tron Town –
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Jared Leto — Ares, a super-intelligent program sent into the real world
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Greta Lee — Eve Kim, ENCOM’s CEO
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Evan Peters — Julian Dillinger, CEO of Dillinger Systems (Ed Dillinger’s grandson)
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Jodie Turner-Smith — Athena, an elite program second-in-command
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Hasan Minhaj — Ajay Singh, ENCOM’s CTO
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Arturo Castro — Seth Flores, Eve’s colleague/confidant
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Gillian Anderson — Elisabeth Dillinger, Julian’s mother
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Jeff Bridges — Kevin Flynn, legendary ENCOM figure from the earlier films
Bottom line: Come for the vibe—NIN’s pulse and the neon sheen—stay for Greta Lee. TRON: ARES doesn’t rewrite the code, but it runs smoothly enough to merit another quarter… if the budget gods allow.
Check out the trailer for TRON: ARES below, and tune into all the KVNU For The People Movie Show by visiting this page.
