🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the classic Tron film from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers engaged in this film, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation 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 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky 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 export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody 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 critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and delegate 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 adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.