Tron: Ares Review – Despite Gillian Anderson Fails to Save This Incredibly Mind-Bendingly Dull Science Fiction Film

The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

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, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations 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 for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for 29 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 plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps designed by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

Consistent with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.