🔗 Share this article

The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this tediously complex science fiction movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, 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 2010. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger 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 corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which cuts a cop car in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.