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The matrix of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to every producer involved in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, 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 armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a sort of 3D 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 discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior 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 plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who recalls the 90s TV 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 widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although his performance isn't aided 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, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, 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 nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which cuts a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.