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What the Flux is going on here?
Æon Flux, the movie, suffers from the same problems that plagued Æon Flux, the TV show. Namely, what the hell is going on? Based on the animated series from MTV's Liquid Television, Æon Flux was always more experimental than coherent. After watching a few episodes where the main character would die gruesome deaths, only to come back in the very next scene, you soon realized that all you were watching was interesting animation and lots-n-lots of violence. Image was everything, right down to the Æ symbol thrown into the title, like an umlaut on some "hëavy mëtal" band. The only thing that mattered was things looked cool... and that there was a scantily-attired hot chick killing stuff. The scantily-attired hot chick in the feature film is played by Charlize Theron, so they got that part right. But, much in the same vein as the TV series, the first half of the movie is so convoluted and filled with ambiguous dialogue, you about give up trying to figure it out. The story goes something like this: apparently in 2011 a virus wipes out 99% of humanity. The world of Æon Flux occurs 400 years later, after a man named Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) found a cure. Humanity now is gathered in the last city on Earth, a place called Bregna. But something is disturbing the peace of the utopia. People randomly disappear. Memories of things that never happened are causing people to teeter on the edge of sanity. A group called the Monicans believe this is Goodchild's fault, and they send Æon to kill him off. That's about the only thing that makes sense in the first hour of the film. Æon is joined by another operative, Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), who we know nothing about, but apparently had her feet replaced with hands. They have to break into some sort of citadel protected by shooting trees and deadly grass, and there's some sort of weird blimp hovering over the city that's supposed to be a memorial of something. There's political intrigue in the Goodchild camp, but we don't really know the players enough to tell them apart, or even really care. There are plenty of action scenes, but the first hour of the film manages to limp along at a snails pace, because we don't really know who or why Æon is fighting. There's no character progression, only obscure dialogue. The worst though, is that director Karyn Kusama (who had previously done Girlfight) never shows us what Æon is capable of, or what her weaknesses are. Whenever it looks like she could be in trouble, she pulls out some random device or martial arts move that the viewer didn't even know she could do. As a result, she's never truly in death's way, so there's no reason for us to fear for her safety, and no way for us to truly care about her. The future is wonderfully designed, but is way too fantastic for us to truly understand. Things that the characters take for granted are never fully explained, so the viewer is just left going, "Huh? Well, okay," when things happen. There's a plot point about two-thirds into the movie where the story finally makes sense. Instead of withholding this information from us, and going for the all-important "twist" in the story, Æon Flux would probably have been much more enjoyable if we knew at least part of this up front. Instead, it feels like walking into the middle of story and trying to figure out everything that happened before you came in. After the story makes sense, Flux becomes more entertaining, but still bizarre enough to not leave you completely fulfilled. Maybe it's all more enjoyable the second time around, after knowing the secret. But you shouldn't have to see a movie twice to enjoy it. It's funny, because many people consider the themes presented by Æon's creator Peter Chung — the lack of plot, the sheer amounts of blood and gore, the T&A — to be a commentary on the inanity of action films. Now, it is an inane action film. Michael D Friedman is an Atlanta screenwriter and filmmaker. He is a founder and co-president of the Atlanta Screenwriters Group. |
Æon Flux
Directed by: Karyn Kusama 
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(1½ out of 4)