🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a third installment to the classic Tron film from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, 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 movie, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character 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 Corp has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive 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 twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is beginning to show signs of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 1990s television 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 widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” 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 the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even dance clubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.