🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment to the classic Tron film from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares almost 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 traditional bit of real-world action. That's a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's odiously nerdish 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 export them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, 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's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, 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, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

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 rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or danger or human interest throughout. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.