The matrix of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi, more a screensaver than an actual film. It’s a threequel to the original movie Tron from 1982, a film that was mould-breaking and boldly pioneering for its day in a way that eludes this one and its predecessor Tron Legacy from 2010. Tron: Ares (almost) comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of analogue reality. That’s a bit of firm parenting you might feel like handing out to every producer involved in this film, and it’s sad to see the estimable Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so lifeless.
The situation now is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger has become a rival to the virtual reality firm Encom, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s odiously nerdish grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a grand plan to design and create profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the virtual reality grid and then export them into actual reality using a kind of 3D 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 discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can keep these things alive for ever, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian 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 time-honoured way of robots, is beginning to show signs of not doing what he’s told. Jodie Turner-Smith plays Ares’s deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Bridges has a leaden legacy cameo in wise white robes, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.
And Ares himself – the hero of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an AI human creation programme. No one who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be totally rude about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally very entertained by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott’s film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, unrelentingly awful here, although he isn’t helped by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Greta Lee’s character and subcontract all the badass wickedness to Athena, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be adorable when Ares says how he loves 80s synth pop and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart.
And in keeping with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorbikes from the VR netherworld which whizz about the place in long straight lines, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); one even shoots out a death ray which slices a cop car in two. 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.
Tron: Ares is out on 9 October in Australia and on 10 October in the UK and US.
