Tron: Ares Film Analysis – Even Gillian Anderson's Efforts Can't Rescue This Incredibly Mind-Bendingly Dull Science Fiction Film
The matrix of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a film that was groundbreaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that escapes this film and its predecessor Tron: Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares nearly awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack 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 want to handing out to every producer engaged in this movie, and it's sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.
Story Summary of The New Tron Film
The scenario currently is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a rival to the VR company Encom, first established in the 1980s gaming period by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This corporation (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as invincible troops and armored vehicles in the virtual reality grid and then transfer them into the real world using a sort of three-dimensional printer.
The problem is that however fearsome, these things crumble into dust after 29 minutes. But Encom's current CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the plot-driving “permanence algorithm” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even stores it on her person on a very low-tech USB drive. So the dreadful Julian 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 beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and unfortunate Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.
Character and Performance Analysis
Moreover, Ares – the hero of the title – is acted by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were possibly created by typing 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 Jared Leto, and I was also quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's movie House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, persistently awful here, although he isn't helped by a weak storyline which is intended to allow him to display glimpses of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus rendering 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.
Series Features and Final Impression
Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the VR netherworld which whizz about the environment in long straight lines, conforming to the angular layout of antique arcade games (or indeed dance clubs); 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 anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.
