🔗 Share this article

The framework of futility is revisited in this tediously complex science fiction film, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares almost comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like handing out to all the producers engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of Tron: Ares

The situation now 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, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the ghastly Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and unfortunate Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

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 linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even nightclubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which slices a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.