Review of Tron: Ares – Even Gillian Anderson Can't Save This Boringly Complex Science Fiction Movie
The matrix of futility is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. This is a third installment to the original movie Tron from 1982, 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. The new Tron film almost awakens just one time – when Evan Peters' character gets a slap in the face from Gillian Anderson 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 every producer involved in this film, and it's unfortunate to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.
Plot Overview of The New Tron Film
The situation now is that an evil AI corporation with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, acted by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a sort of three-dimensional printer.
The problem 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 MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic USB drive. So the dreadful Julian deploys his enforcer 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 androids, is starting to exhibit symptoms of not doing what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena's role and poor 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 film's name – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by inputting the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will always find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his expansive (and widely misinterpreted) comic turn in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be charming when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are superior to Mozart.
Series Features and Overall Impact
And in keeping with the franchise identity of the series, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or indeed nightclubs); a single bike even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is no drama or jeopardy or human interest throughout. This series now looks as relevant as an in-car CD player.
