Tron: Ares Film Analysis – Despite Gillian Anderson Can't Save This Incredibly Boringly Complex Science Fiction Movie

The framework of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi film, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a threequel to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. Tron: Ares almost comes to life just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mother, in an traditional bit of real-world action. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like administering to all the producers involved in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of The New Tron Film

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is headed by the founder's odiously nerdish grandson's character Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to develop and produce lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and tanks 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 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and unfortunate Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Acting and Roles Analysis

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 inputting the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life series will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode band are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which speed around the environment in linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or even dance clubs); one even shoots out a lethal beam which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This series now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.