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The matrix of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” 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 Dillinger 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 robots, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, details that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which cuts a cop car in half. But there is no drama or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.