🔗 Share this article

The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this tediously complex science fiction movie, more a screensaver than an real cinematic experience. This is a threequel to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and boldly pioneering for its time in a way that eludes this one and its forerunner Tron: Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mother, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a piece of tough love you might want to administering to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's unfortunate to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The situation now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a rival to the VR company Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom executive Ed Dillinger's role, acted by David Warner) is headed 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 actual reality using a kind of three-dimensional printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these things crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence code” which can maintain these entities for ever, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of robots, is starting to exhibit symptoms of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton's setting.

Character and Performance Analysis

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, details that were possibly created 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 ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Jared Leto is consistently, unrelentingly terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he adores 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Final Impression

Consistent with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorbikes from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, conforming to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); a single bike even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.