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The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a bit of firm parenting you might feel like handing out to every producer engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the VR company Encom, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were possibly designed by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even nightclubs); one even emits a death ray which cuts a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.