The matrix of futility is revisited in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might feel like handing out to all the producers 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 uninspired.
The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival 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 corporation (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, 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 profitable things such as invincible troops and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.
The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger 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 robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.
And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. 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 incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) 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 supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee's character and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.
Consistent with the brand-identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even dance clubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in two. But there is no drama or jeopardy or emotional engagement anywhere. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.
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