Tron: Ares

image for Tron: Ares

Short takes

Not suitable under 12; parental guidance to 13 (violence, themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Tron: Ares
  • a review of Tron: Ares completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 14 October 2025.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to violence and themes.
Children aged 12–13 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and themes.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Tron: Ares
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Science fiction violence
Length: 119 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) mysteriously disappears after creating the ‘Grid’, a digital ecosystem where programs live, evolve and interact with the world outside. Rumour has it, Kevin invented a Permanence Code which would enable artificial intelligence to live within the real world. World class programmer and CEO of the ENCON Corporation, Eve Kim (Greta Lee) is obsessed with locating and unlocking this hidden Code and travels to the ends of the Earth to do so. Meanwhile, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) leads the tech conglomerate founded by his grandfather and uses his technical expertise to weaponise the Grid’s capabilities, seeking power and personal gain. He develops a security software called Ares (Jared Leto) and makes him master control of the Grid, while showcasing the military advantages of having AI soldiers and machinery. The only problem is that his AI does not last longer than half an hour in the real world before they self-destruct. Julian is desperate to get his hands on the Permanence Code and sends soldiers after Eve to take it from her. When Ares experiences a moment of compassion from Eve, he begins to see humans differently and questions his orders. When Eve’s life is endangered, Ares defies Julian’s command and helps her return to the real world in exchange for her sharing the Performance Code and allowing him to live. Julian sends an army of AI to stop Eve from helping Ares and to gain total control of the Code once and for all but his ambition has unforeseen consequences, resulting in mass destruction of parts of the city and the loss of someone he’d always loved.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Death of a family member; Lack of identity; Control; Rebellion; Artificial Intelligence; Digital conscience; Excessive greed and an insatiable thirst for power.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • The legs of digital characters are cut off.
  • A brute force attack causes digital characters to implode.
  • A police car is sliced in half with a laser.
  • During a high speed chase, a bus and motorbike nearly crash and Eve hits her motorcycle into another character.
  • A baby in a car is nearly hit by a motorbike.
  • Eve flips through the air and crashes her bike into a shed.
  • A gun sucks Eve into the Grid.
  • Ares is repeatedly instructed to extract the Code and delete the carrier, meaning that he must kill Eve.
  • When Ares refuses to kill Eve, another soldier is put in his place and instructed to kill both Ares and Eve.
  • Soldiers attack Eve and Ares as they fall through a window and plummet into the water below.
  • Eve steals a truck and drives through the gate of a company.
  • A mother slaps her son in the face.
  • An AI soldier smashes into Eve’s office with a futuristic flying machine.
  • One character throat-punches another.
  • A character tips over game consoles and nearly crushes Eve.
  • A character kills Julian Dillinger’s mother by stabbing her in the stomach.
  • An AI army comes to attack Eve and take the Code from her by any means possible.
  • An AI soldier shoots down a police helicopter and an entire building explodes.
  • An AI airship deflects numerous military missiles that are locked onto it, causing them to explode elsewhere.
  • A plane is cut in half by lasers.
  • Eve is trapped in a blazing AI circle, generated by lasers and light.
  • The AI airship is attacked and crashes into a building, causing debris to rain down on Eve.
  • A character abducts Eve and crashes into a bunch of cars as she tries to escape. Ares stops the vehicle.
  • Ares and an AI soldier fight each other, kicking, punching and hitting one another as their weapons are out of reach. Ares smashes the soldier’s helmet from its head and slices off the characters hand. The character then crumbles into dust.
  • Julian uses lasers to suck himself into the Grid once he realises the authorities are coming for him.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Julian communicates with his AI creations in the Grid through the use of a large, black head with hollow eyes that hangs suspended in the air. There are moments when his instructions are menacing and sinister. The image may be distressing for some young viewers.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • There are numerous chase scenes in which AI soldiers are coming after Eve. The intensity of these sequences and the strong sense of impending danger could be upsetting for some children.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • The band Depeche Mode is repeatedly referenced.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Tron: Ares is an action-packed, science fiction film featuring fast-paced combat, multiple chase scenes and numerous special effects. The film is a loose continuation of the previous Tron films, keeping certain key elements but introducing a new, stand-alone, storyline. The film is best suited to audiences over the age of 13.

The main messages from this movie are that ‘you are more than what you were made to be’; and that we should not allow the limitations placed by society or other individuals to define our identities or what we can become.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Compassion
  • Teamwork
  • Courage
  • Kindness
  • Curiosity
  • Respect.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Becoming heavily dependent on technology and forgetting the best aspects of what it means to be human.
  • Corporate greed and the exploitation of technology.
  • The dangers of supressing your identity.
  • Blurring ethical boundaries and attempting to retain control at any cost.