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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this one and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens 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. This is a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to all the producers involved in this film, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles 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 things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” 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 sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was also very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract 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 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which cuts 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.