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The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to every producer engaged 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 scenario now is that an evil AI corporation 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 brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” 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 warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is beginning to show signs of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were possibly created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” 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 Mr Leto, and I was also very entertained by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful in this film, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.