Review of Tron: Ares – Despite Gillian Anderson Fails to Rescue This Boringly Complex Science Fiction Movie

The matrix of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like administering to every producer engaged in this film, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into actual reality using a kind 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 plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian deploys his enforcer 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 androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays 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

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps designed by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently terrible here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in two. But there is no drama or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This franchise currently appears as relevant as an automobile CD system.