A highly sophisticated program, Ares, is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission. (from IMDb)

It’s been 15 years since we last visited The Grid on a big screen. Sure TRON spawned an animated series after TRON Legacy's 2010 release, but the continuation of the theatrical story has lie dormant - with an oft talked about third film - for a decade and a half. So, after many delays, we finally have the third film in the series, TRON: Ares.

At first glance, TRON: Ares feels like it has very little to do with the first 2 movies. In a way, that's true, but it really isn't. The first movie centered on Jeff Bridges' character, Kevin Flynn and the sequel, Legacy, centered on his estranged son Sam, played by Garrett Hedlund. In an effort to find his missing father, Sam stumbled onto The Grid where he found his father trapped. The film ended with Kevin Flynn sacrificing himself to help Sam escape back into the real world, taking an advanced, evolved female program named Quorra with him.

15 years later, Kevin Flynn is still officially missing, while Sam is off somewhere with Quorra, apparently. Encom, the company Kevin had once worked for and then Sam inherited is being run Eve Kim, who had taken over the company from Sam, along with her sister (Who passed away before the events of this film). Running a rival company, called Dillinger Systems, is the grandson of the first film's villain, Julian Dillinger - played by Evan Peters. When we meet Julian, he's in the middle of pitching to the military the idea of bringing characters - or "programs" - from the TRON world to the real world. Dillinger had created what he deems to be the perfect soldier, Ares - played by Jared Leto - and hopes for Ares to be the poster boy for this new money-making venture. But Ares doesn't stray too far from the same cloth that Quorra was proverbially cut from, and he starts to develop feelings and self-awareness. When Julian orders him to kill when he doesn't want to, everything changes.

Meanwhile, the head of Encom, Eve, is off trying to solve a very tricky problem: anything digital brought into the real world "derezzes" and falls to pieces after 29 minutes. She believes Kevin Flynn solved this problem and the answer lies on a disk somewhere. And when Dillinger gets word of this, the hunt is on for Eve. I realize this is a lot to digest, so how does it work as a film? It's hardly perfect, but it feels like a pretty good progression from the direction Legacy took the franchise in. And with AI being all the rage in 2025, the events of Ares don't feel too far-fetched.

If you're a fan of TRON or TRON: Legacy, there's a good chance you'll also like TRON: Ares. Its weakest spots may be in some of the dialog and casting - and perhaps a bit of an over-the-top performance from Peters - but there ends up being plenty of new neat ideas and fantastic visuals to make this one worthy of being lumped in with its successors. It's definitely bittersweet that Hedlund and Olivia Wilde do not return for this third entry. They're referenced, and we see photos of them, but they don't make an appearance otherwise. (I'd love to see a fourth film involve them, though.) Also, TRON: Ares is the first film (or TV series) that doesn't involve the character of TRON at all. We see visual references to the TRON video game, but that's where any mention of it (or him) ends. And Bruce Boxleitner, who had played the character, is nowhere to be found.

Still, references abound to both previous films - from oranges to "Dumont" to the way a character appears getting projected out of The Grid, to some heavy visual nods to the original. It's all mostly done in a way that doesn't feel too much like fan service, mostly adding to the enjoyment of the movie's experience (especially those visual nods to the 1982 original). Although he apparently has a very controversial lifestyle off screen, I thought Jared Leto was actually pretty good as Ares. He fit the character pretty well, and ended up being surprisingly likeable. Greta Lee, on the other hand, while fine as Eve Kim, feels like an odd casting choice for the role she plays. Again, she's fine, but not particularly memorable in the film. If anything, she exists to keep the story moving forward, but she doesn't really seem to have much of a character arc or development. Her blandness shifts the focus to Leto's Ares, which is probably part of her purpose. Evan Peters works well enough as the film's main villain, but his performance is so hot-tempered and loud, it borders on cartoonish. X-Files' Gillian Anderson plays his mother with more class, providing a little extra conflict for Dillinger. And Jodie Turner-Smith plays a fellow program to Ares, named Athena, and seems to be a pretty good fit for the role of a battle-ready program as well.

I was pretty disappointed to hear Daft Punk wasn't returning to score Ares, and when I gave a listen to the new score from Nine Inch Nails before seeing the movie, I thought it was pretty weak. However, used within the film, Trent Reznor's more dissonant industrial score fits the vibe that Ares aims to give off. The movie is darker than either of the previous films (but not without hope), and Reznor's score only fosters that feeling. (I could have done without him singing on four of the best tracks on the soundtrack, though.) Surprisingly, Reznor gives a few musical nods to the Daft Punk score -- just enough to ground it in the same world.

The content for TRON: Ares isn't too bad, but it's edgier than the previous films. This is the first in the series to earn a PG-13 rating, too. But this is mostly because of the darker feel and violence in the film. The only blood is seen as some light scrapes on two different people's faces near the end of the movie. The most violent moment is when a human character is impaled by a pointed light disc. We see the victim lying on the ground after being stabbed, slowly dying, with what looks like burn marks on their clothing, instead of blood. (I suppose a real person getting stabbed by a light disc is like getting stabbed by a light saber.) There are several action sequences that show black-masked programs in glow-trim suits fighting each other with light discs and staffs, with many of them falling apart into pieces of glowing digital cubes (much like in TRON: Legacy). And when these characters "derezz" in the real world, their skin starts to look ashen and then it crumbles to pieces (sometimes while the victim is screaming). A lot of it can be considered intense by younger viewers, so definitely keep that in mind. There is no sexual content at all, but there is just a little more profanity than the previous films. Gillian Anderson utters the film's lone "S" word, while Hasan Minhaj's Ajay says "g*dd*mn" in one scene. Other than that, there are several uses of "Oh my G-d," "Oh G-d" or "My G-d," and a few of "h*ll" and "d*mn."

TRON: Ares is hardly a masterpiece, but it's a lot of fun. If you want a good sci-fi action flick to carry on this modest, iconic franchise, I really don't think TRON: Ares disappoints. We caught it on IMAX 3D and it was a visually exciting spectacle (albeit maybe too loud). Hopefully this isn't the last we'll see of the TRON world, but if it is, I think it's a relatively satisfying way to end it. (There is no post-credits scene, but there is an extra scene after the credits start that show you the fate of a particular character, while giving some quality nostalgic feels regarding the 1982 original - so definitely stick around for that.)