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The matrix of futility is reloaded 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 the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and tanks in the VR world and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered 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 ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life 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 film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed 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 supposed to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which slices a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.