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The framework of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a sort of 3D printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm 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's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.