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The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like handing out to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation now is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem 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 code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers 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 also quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film 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 “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.