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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 mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this one 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 portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to every producer involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as invincible troops and tanks in the VR world and then export them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, 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 plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and unfortunate 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 film's name – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even dance clubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.