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The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction 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 time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character 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 has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted 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 profitable things such as invincible troops and tanks in the VR world and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine 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 keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which slices a cop car in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears as relevant as an automobile CD system.