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The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as invincible troops and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is beginning to show signs of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also very entertained by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); one even emits a lethal beam which slices a police vehicle in two. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.