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The matrix of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a third installment 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 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 smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a kind 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's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter 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 plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps created by inputting 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 also very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful in this film, 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 rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade 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 anywhere. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.