Tron: Ares Review – Despite Gillian Anderson Can't Rescue This Boringly Complex Sci-Fi Film

The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers involved 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.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the VR company Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (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 very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly 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 androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie 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 delegate all the villainous actions to Athena, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even emits a lethal beam which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or emotional engagement anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.