Tron: Ares Review – Despite Gillian Anderson's Efforts Can't Rescue This Boringly Complex Science Fiction Film

The matrix of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly awakens 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. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to all the producers involved in this film, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role 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 obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (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 export them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior 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 portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract 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 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); one even emits a lethal beam which slices a cop car in two. But there is no drama or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.