Aeon Flux
The answer to the following 2 rhetorial questions is “yes.” Are we so cynical as movie consumers that we automatically expect a science fiction comic book adaptation starring a recent Oscar winner to suck rocks? Is Hollywood so out of touch with the mainstream of what people want to see in movies that their sure-fire hits end up almost exclusively misses, but sometimes their red-headed stepchildren end up being tons of fun? As one of my companions noted, in surprise at the non-suckiness of Aeon Flux, “the glass is half full.” This is not to say that Aeon Flux is an instant classic or a pants-wettingly exciting adaptation of a forgotten graphic novel. However, it is also not a Catwomanesque career killer nor a wasted 93 minutes. And it has the coolest locations since Gattaca.
Lately, science fiction seems to go in two directions: One is the Blade Runneresque dark, grimy, seemingly inevitable future of analogue and digital hybrids and extremes. The other is the shiny, moderne, soft focus idealized “technology has solved all our problems” of the latter-day Star Treks. What’s nifty about Aeon Flux is that the last city of Bregna wants to be living the shiny happy people song that is Trek’s rough contemporary
400 years in our future, but actually is a disgusting morass of immorality and fear, just like the wet streets of the other kind of movie. On top of all this, it has technology so advanced it turns more into a fantasy movie. Aeon has a ring that sloughs off chips that can respond to a command and (there’s no other word for it) magically assemble into a destructive mass. To imagine a technology capable of producing such a thing is mind bogglingly abstract, whereas a replicator or faster than light drives, whether impossible or not, can be explained on some vaguely satisfying level. It was neat to fall into a world where much of what makes it “sci fi” is really fantastical.
Charlize Theron and her handsome costar Marton Csokas have quite a load to carry. They have to demonstrate two sides of a political divide that has evolved from a crazy source and into a desperate situation, while still keeping it relevant to us in the audience. While sometimes I felt that the information could have been parsed out to us in a more efficient (or interesting) way, overall by the end I had enough questions answered to enjoy all the exciting parts. They are supported by a small posse of reliable indie film stalwarts, lending them gravitas and keeping the cheese factor down as much as possible. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that these venerable actors must have been shown a different script than the one that played out at my multiplex. Be that as it may, while I can live forever never seeing it again, I am glad I saw it. It doesn’t hurt that Charlize Theron is so beautiful to look at, and her character is called upon to do and wear so many interesting things, it’s almost like watching an exotic creature in a zoo - even when it’s kind of being boring, it still commands your attention.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 12/2/05
Time in minutes 93
Director Karyn Kusama
Studio Paramount
