🔗 Share this article

The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's 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 eludes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to all the producers engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a sort of 3D printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm 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 portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were possibly designed by typing 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 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 Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.