Tron: Ares review – even Gillian Anderson can’t slap this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi into shape

Pointless threequel delivers a leaden cameo from a white-robed Jeff Bridges and an irritating turn from Jared Leto as a hipster-haired humanoid 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. Continue reading...

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