A sophisticated “program” being is sent from a parallel digital world on a dangerous mission to… Forgive me, reader, I never could quite figure out what that mission was because, one, if there is such a mission, it’s buried in the end-to-end elaborate SFX set pieces and overwhelmed by a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails turned up to 11. And two, I really didn’t care. Pinocchio maybe?

This digi-being is of course a soulless ghoul, which makes casting Jared Leto in the role a stroke of genius. And while it’s good to finally see Greta Lee in a starring role, her breakout role is yet to come. Gillian Anderson puts in the best performance. At the helm is Sweden’s Joaquim Ronning, a journeyman director who’s reportedly under indictment for making Maleficent, Mistress of Evil and one of the worst-ever Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

So what’s going on at Disney? The studio has in the past few years subjected its faithful audiences to a devastating string of box-office bombs: Lightyear, Strange World, Haunted Mansion, Wish, The Marvels – and don’t even get me started on Snow White. I’m not a fan of the company, but I hope they can get their rodent droppings together soon.

Let’s talk about “legacy sequels.” I think this means that creatively bankrupt filmmakers have exhausted all the usual sequels, prequels, and re-imaginings, and a decade or more down the road, decide to just tell the same story over again, but add a lot of newer-tech bells and whistles.

This already happened to the 1982 Jeff Bridges vehicle Tron, which was truly groundbreaking, in the inert form of Tron:Legacy, featuring a de-aged Bridges. Smelled up the room. (A non-de-aged Bridges shows up this time in a cameo as some sort of guru. I could swear he was holding a white Russian.)

This two-hour screensaver lacks drama, risk and any human dimension. Those who will like it the most are 1) under age twelve, 2) fans of Nine Inch Nails, and 3) deaf. The shameless setup for a sequel was actually insulting. (119 min)