IS IT GAME ON, OR GAME OVER FOR 'TRON: ARES'?

It's rather ironic that a Disney film highlighting the importance of being "real" and "alive," with all its builtin limitations, is largely set in a programmed digital Grid, as is the case with all Tron movies, but particularly the latest installment, Tron: Ares.

- SCOTT GARCEAU

Jared Leto as Ares Tron Warrior Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith)

There are meta levels to this. There's our aspiration for entertainment that feels "real" and life-affirming, but which itself is actually a dizzying matrix of super-powered CGI settings and a lead actorJared Leto - who, on a good day, registers as a hipster cyborg.

Leto (who co-produced this standalone entry) plays a new version of the warrior program first introduced in 1982's Tron, which blew the world's mind with its cutting-edge computer graphics and imagery, but was, to be honest, a bit clunky, despite the presence of young Jeff Bridges. Leto's program, built from A.I., is called Ares, as in the God of War, and he's brought into the real world by tech baddie Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who pitches him to military generals as the perfect super soldierinstantly replaceable, with all kinds of cool toys that will guarantee victory over opponents.

The toys are, indeed, cool. Leto is also cool, to be honest, and more likable in this role than, say, Niander, the weird-eyed replicant designer he plays in Blade Runner: 2049. He even admits to Tron inventor and fellow Grid occupant Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) that he prefers Depeche Mode to the surface complexities of Mozart, though it's a choice he can't fully explain because "It's... just a feeling."