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The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to administering to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these creations disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the dreadful Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, 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 portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

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, touches that were possibly designed by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) 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 weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or emotional engagement anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.