“Tron: Ares” (read our review here) finally arriving 15 years after “Tron: Legacy,” which itself came 28 years after the original venture into the Grid. Like the second installment, “Tron: Ares” introduces a new cast of characters at risk of being derezzed to replace those noticeably missing from its predecessor. Fans of the franchise need not worry, however, because it’s in skirting around the past of “Tron: Legacy” that “Tron: Ares” sets up a future chapter that we hope will arrive much sooner than it took for this and the previous film to load up.
Perhaps one of the boldest things “Tron: Ares” does is daring to tie back to a film that, for the most part, it pays very little attention to. When our third trip into the Grid begins, we’re informed that Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, the only “Tron” cast member to return in “Ares”), and escaped program, Quorra (Oliva Wilde) have not been seen since they rode off into the sunset at the end of “Legacy,” seemingly leaving the business and digital world behind them. Now, all focus is on Flynn Jr.’s successor, the new ENCOM CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee), who is looking for the Permanence Code that will keep digital creations in the real world, whether it’s an orange tree to solve food scarcity or Ares (Jared Leto), an escaped program made by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the grandson of original “Tron” antatonist, Edward Dillinger (David Warner).
