The matrix of pointlessness is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a movie that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. That's a bit of firm parenting you might want to handing out to all the producers engaged in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.
The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.
The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these things disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the ghastly Julian sets his attack dog on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena's role and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.
And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly designed by inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life series will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was also very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is intended to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus rendering her slightly more engaging. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart.
And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.
A software engineer and tech writer passionate about open-source projects and AI advancements.
