Review

Review Date: 4-December-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

Aeon Flux (2005)

I can't say I wasn't warned. The kid at the box office told me I would suffer watching "Aeon Flux" because it was straight-up bad instead of so-bad-that-it's-good. (Not much of a salesman there.) Yet I sat through the darn thing anyway, pondering all the while that there are some movies nobody could love and "Aeon Flux" is probably one of them.

This adaptation of an MTV cartoon isn't exactly painful, but nothing about it makes sense — not the characters, the plot, or director Karyn Kusama's decisions. Following the same post-Oscar path that led Halle Berry to "Catwoman," Charlize Theron dons a black body suit to star as the titular heroine, a rebel who lives 400 years in the future. Aeon is a denizen of the last city on Earth, which is run by scions of a family, the Goodchilds, that once saved mankind from extinction. With little explanation of her means or motives, the movie opens by sending her on a mission to sabotage the Goodchild regime, and then, after a meager stab at character development, on another mission to assassinate Chairman Trevor Goodchild himself (Marton Csokas). Most of the action takes place inside his compound, where Aeon uncovers a mystery that causes her to rethink whatever objectives she might have had (and where security is either extremely high or nonexistent depending on what's happening at the time).

This mystery offers just enough incentive to keep one's eyes open, if Theron's skimpy outfits don't get the job done. Although it doesn't amount to much, the question of what's going on is a distraction that smoothes over a series of idiotic moments and poorly framed fight scenes. (I gotta ask, though: are post-coital rules really so inflexible that a expertly trained assassin must fall asleep after a tumble even though she's on assignment and in the enemy's bed?) The story becomes more befuddled once the secret is revealed and downright dull after Aeon redirects her hostility from despotism to the malaise of humanity, numbering among her opponents a one-time comrade (Sophie Okonedo) and the younger, more sniveling Goodchild (Jonny Lee Miller). (One good thing about the finale: it doesn't hint of a sequel.)

"Aeon Flux" was likely envisioned as a female-driven complement to "The Matrix," but it lacks the energy and interest of even that mediocre tale. One has to wonder if the monotonous delivery used by all the actors signifies someone's interpretation of 25th-century cool or the indifference that this flick deserves.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.