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The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that escapes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might want to administering to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were possibly created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although he isn't helped 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, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable 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 brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.