Type Title Author/Director/Developer Date Rating Movie Aeon Flux Karyn Kusama 2005-12-11

Review

I went into Aeon Flux expecting it to be flimsy. I pictured Tomb Raider style massive action sequences with a little strand of plot in the 5 minutes between them. I was hoping for more, but that is what I expected. Well, it turns out Aeon Flux was much better than I expected.

That’s not to say it didn’t have large action sequences full of slow motion jumps, crazy acrobatics and ludicrous weaponry—It had plenty of that. But I always felt that the plot was driving the action, rather than the other way around. And I liked the plot too—I wont spoil the surprises, but it was a reasonable science fiction plot that I could buy. Some of the 25th century technology was a little hard to swallow, but it was at least inventive.

I thought Charlize Theron was great as Aeon Flux. She starts the movie with an idealistic attitude, goes through a dead inside brutal soldier phase, ending up finding human feeling again. And she does this in a believable way.

I really liked the art direction of Aeon Flux. Everything had a nice clean futuristic look without resorting to the cliche future of huge bulbous glass skyscrapers and such. Everything was very bright and crisp.

I’ve heard a lot of people comparing this to the original MTV cartoons. I remember watching them on Liquid Television back in the day and thought they were odd. I don’t remember thinking it was particularly brilliant, but I didn’t hate it either. The truth is that I don’t remember much about them except that she had the skimpiest outfit ever. When I heard about the movie, I thought, “Are they really going to dress someone in an authentic outfit?” Thankfully, the answer is no. Do you really want to watch an entire movie where the heroine wears this?

It’s fine for a cartoon, but a little over the top for a real person. I think the translation from cartoon to real person was reasonable—it kept the spirit of the character, if not the exact crazy hair flip look.

I came out of this movie feeling good. I definitely recommend seeing this if you like science fiction at all.