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The framework of futility is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that escapes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary 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 VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character 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 three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which speed around the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or even 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 now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.