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The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might want to administering to all the producers engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the VR company Encom, originally set up in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as invincible troops and tanks in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can exit the virtual realm for twenty-nine 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's performance plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Acting and Roles Analysis

Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, facial hair and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps designed by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his expansive (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.

Series Features and Overall Impact

And in keeping with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of classic video games (or indeed dance clubs); a single bike even shoots out a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.