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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer involved in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a kind of 3D printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores 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 time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); one even emits a death ray which cuts a police vehicle in two. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.