Review of Tron: Ares – Despite Gillian Anderson's Efforts Can't Rescue This Incredibly Mind-Bendingly Dull Science Fiction Film

The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this one and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film almost comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently 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 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom 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 profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered 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 sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – 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 possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie 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 “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); one 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 in-car CD player.