Tron: Ares Film Analysis – Despite Gillian Anderson's Efforts Can't Rescue This Mind-Bendingly Dull Sci-Fi Movie

The matrix of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, closer to 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 2010. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable 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 whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in two. But there is no drama or danger or human interest throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.