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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish 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 VR world and then transfer them into actual reality using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for 29 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 deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently terrible here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This series currently appears as relevant as an automobile CD system.