Tron: Ares Film Analysis – Despite Gillian Anderson Fails to Rescue This Mind-Bendingly Dull Sci-Fi Film

The matrix of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex sci-fi film, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the classic Tron film from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that escapes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger 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 time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the protagonist of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided 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 meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a police vehicle in two. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.