Review of Tron: Ares – Despite Gillian Anderson Fails to Rescue This Incredibly Mind-Bendingly Dull Science Fiction Movie

The matrix of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a third installment to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation now 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, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, played 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 invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian 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 androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was also very entertained by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); one even emits a death ray which cuts a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.