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

The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this one and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create 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 3D printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, 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 permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were possibly designed by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming 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 franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); one even emits a death ray which cuts a cop car in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise currently appears as relevant as an in-car CD player.