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The framework of futility is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The scenario now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful in this film, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.