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The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction movie, 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 boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this film and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a bit of firm parenting you might want to handing out to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid 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's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.