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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might feel like administering to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, 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 tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that however fearsome, these things disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares, 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 beginning to show signs of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist 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 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld 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 cuts a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.