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The matrix of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film almost comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this film, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer 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 Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate 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 extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares, 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 starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps created by typing 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 totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); one even emits a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.