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

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 third installment to the classic Tron film from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like handing out to every producer involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish 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, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (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 export them into actual reality using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog 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 plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline 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 rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or even dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is no drama or danger or human interest anywhere. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.