Tron: Ares Review – Despite Gillian Anderson Can't Save This Mind-Bendingly Dull Sci-Fi Film

The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares almost comes to life just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps designed by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude 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 Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in two. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.