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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just once – 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 bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee 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 evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, 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's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and tanks in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly designed by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.