Tron: Ares Review – Even Gillian Anderson Can't Save This Incredibly Boringly Complex Science Fiction Movie

The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from the early 80s, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary 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 competitor to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce 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 issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian 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 disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who recalls 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 also very entertained 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 his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design 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 currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.