🔗 Share this article

The matrix of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. That's a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is headed by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The problem is that however fearsome, these creations crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” 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 deploys his enforcer 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 androids, is beginning to show signs of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were perhaps designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, persistently terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point 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 marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he adores 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

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 linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which cuts a cop car in two. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.