Review of Tron: Ares – Despite Gillian Anderson Can't Save This Incredibly Mind-Bendingly Dull Sci-Fi Film

The matrix of pointlessness is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as invincible troops and tanks 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 (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, 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 is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor 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 protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always 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 movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.