Tron: Ares Review – Despite Gillian Anderson's Efforts Fails to Rescue This Mind-Bendingly Dull Sci-Fi Movie

The matrix 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 the early 80s, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a bit of firm parenting you might feel like administering to every producer involved 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 The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company 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, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky 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 VR world and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, 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 poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even dance clubs); one even emits a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.