🔗 Share this article

The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to handing out to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom 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 design and create profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, 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 superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine 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 stoic deputy Athena's role and unfortunate Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a lethal beam which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.