Review of Tron: Ares – Despite Gillian Anderson's Efforts Can't Rescue This Boringly Complex Sci-Fi Movie

The framework of pointlessness is revisited in this tediously complex sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film almost comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to all the producers involved 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.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create 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 3D printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly designed by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance 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 intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or emotional engagement anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.