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The matrix of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. It's a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from the previous decade. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mother, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That's a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so lifeless.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The scenario currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the virtual reality firm Encom Inc, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson's character Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to develop and produce lucrative items such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger sets his attack dog on her: Ares, the humanoid uber-warrior which can leave the VR world for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in sage-like white garments, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, facial hair and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly designed by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was also quite amused by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, persistently terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to display glimpses of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart.

Series Features and Final Impression

And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); a single bike even emits a lethal beam which cuts a cop car in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.