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The framework of futility is revisited in this tediously complex science fiction film, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that escapes this one and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer involved in this film, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

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, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. 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 very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly terrible in this film, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the place in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or emotional engagement anywhere. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.