🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was mould-breaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film almost comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the VR world and then transfer them into the real world using a sort of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the ghastly Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a police vehicle in two. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest anywhere. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.