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The matrix of futility is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment 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. The new Tron film almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps 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 ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which cuts a cop car in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise currently appears as relevant as an in-car CD player.