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The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to all the producers engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which slices a cop car in half. But there is no drama or danger or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.