🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to all the producers involved 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.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech 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 traditional way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline 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 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.