Aeon Flux

Realizing, I guess, that there's no reasonable way to affordably bring Peter Chung's animated creation to life, director Karyn Kusama and producer Gale Ann Hurd have completely altered the aesthetics of Aeon Flux. Bearing little to no actual visual resemblance to the decade-old MTV series it proposes to reimagine, Aeon Flux nevertheless succeeds in capturing the spirit of Chung's enterprise, that initially found life as a series of nihilistic shorts on the network's "Liquid Television."

Screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi have captured the deadly serious, montone delivery of the show's characters, the confusing 180's in narrative and the obvious references to anti-totalitarian literature like "1984." But is this a good thing? It kind of feels like all that made "Aeon Flux" the show worth watching has been left behind for the film, and all the pointless exposition and inscrutable characters with never-explained motives have remained intact.

The show was never particularly memorable for story in the first place (almost all of those shorts ended with Aeon dying without even completing her unexplained mission), but was enjoyed by stoners everywhere for its bizarre animation and ingenuitive visual invention. Chung's world was a freaky, cyberpunk dystopia in which everyone was muscular, androgynous and into leather, so who cares what's actually going on in the 20 minute cartoons? Just get to more suggested nudity!



An above-average genre film probably could have arisen from the raw materials of Aeon Flux. A futureworld in which a tyrant named Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) rules a repressed populace through brainwashing and fear provides a reasonable, if somewhat familiar, setting. Sexy chicks who kickass in tight spandex are all the rage these days. The central twist, though reminiscent in some ways to The Matrix or Dark City, provides for a more thoughtful and melancholy conclusion than most blockbusters. And as I said, the screenwriters clearly have an imagination fruitful and perverse enough to channel Chung; telepathic brain implants, retinal microscopes and surgery to replace one's feet with an additional set of hands are all inventions wacky and invasive enough to imagine existing in the world of Aeon Flux.

In some ways, it's the character of Aeon herself that keep the film from succeeding even on those modest terms. Former model and Oscar winner Theron doesn't make a strong case as a credible action heroine here. Like Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies, it's a good casting idea and a reasonably-good resemblance to a previously-existing character that simply doesn't work at all. Like Jolie's take on Lara Croft, Theron seems confused in how to approach the character, and never once seems to actually get inside the head of this larger-than-life cartoon. Is she aware of her sexuality and using it to her advantage, or is her sexiness merely a byproduct of ambition, single-mindedness and athleticism? Does she think of herself as a massive hero-badass, or just a simple girl caught in an out-of-control situation? Why does she have to seem so bored all the time, even when jumping through a field of dagger grass while evading dozens of guys in silly helmets with shotguns?

Kusama (whose only previous film, Girlfight, was an indie with no large-scale action whatsoever) employs far too many cuts during the action scenes, and even artificially speeds-up some of the shots to make Theron seem faster. I don't know for sure if this is compensating for Theron's inability to "sell" her character's agility or toughness.

This is both a failure in terms of performance and physicality. Of course, Theron can't really jump around and contort her body like Aeon. It's a fantasy of human movement, not realism. But we simply never believe she's a badass. The fights seem fake, the stunts flowery and ridiculous, and the visceral impact of the hits connect even less than the punches.

Really, she has no presence in the film at all. Possibly as an homage to the cartoon, all the characters, save Johnny Lee Miller's villain, speak and behave in the most monotone, stoic manner possible. Again, it works in brief animated form, when all the viewer's really focused on is the design, but the technique just saps all the energy from a feature-length film. Miller, as Goodchildn's scheming younger brother Oren, gives the film's most scene-chewing, bellicose performance, which also makes him the only even marginally interesting character. Too bad he has so little screen time and such bad dialogue.

In all honesty, bringing Aeon Flux to the screen in a live-action film was pretty much doomed to fail. Like Judge Dredd or the Super Mario Brothers or even Howard the Duck, this was an idiosyncratic work that happened organically in another form, and trying to squeeze something so peculiar and unexpected and of itself into the format of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster movie is a fool's errand, destined from the first to come out watered down and unsatisfying. Far more mystifying than the forgettable final product is what could have motivated the genesis of such a concept in the first place.