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The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this tediously complex science fiction movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to every producer engaged in this film, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor 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 executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were possibly created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering 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.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is no drama or danger or human interest anywhere. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.