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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron 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. Tron: Ares almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee 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, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. 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 Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.