Dir. Karyn Kusama, 2005, US, 93 mins
Cast: Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, Johnny Lee Miller, Frances McDormand
Review by Richard Badley
Pitched somewhere between Judge Dredd’s last bastion of civilization Mega City 1 and The Prisoner’s rose-tinted holiday camp of The Village Aeon Flux’s Bregna houses the 5 million survivors of a terrible virus 400 hundred years into the future. But as with any forced conformity the sunny smiles mask a fear, the fear of suddenly being taken. Aeon Flux (Theron) is the one sticking it to the man as part of the rebellious Monicans, possibly named because she looks a bit like Monica from Friends? One of the many questions you can ask yourself during this vacuous high-concept actioner that worked as an MTV animated series but on film feels like a good sci-fi short overblown into a showreel for Theron’s buns.
Aeon Flux isn’t a happy automaton when the government murder her sister and sets about assassinating President Goodchild (Csokas) but finds she is unable to pull the trigger when the time comes. Instead the oft-asked questions are thrown up; what are memories, what is reality, what is the truth behind all of this? All of these head-scratchers have been answered by superior movies that always have humanity at the heart of their stories. While Aeon Flux has a genuinely interesting conceit behind it the way it is presented is clunky; utilising blurry flashbacks and lengthy scenes of exposition about as gripping as the opening text “In 2011 99% of the human race…”
The integral love story has the emotion of watching Theron in a shampoo advert and with scenes of councils sitting round talking or weirdly dressed prophets there is nothing to create a tangible world where humanity must be saved. Has the genre learned nothing from George Lucas? Not even an action junkie will have much more success. Most of the obstacles thrown in Flux’s way seem arbitrarily made-up as the film goes on; killer grass, needle firing pinecones, ball-bearings that conveniently blow-up prison walls. The highlight being her scrap with Goodchild’s right-hand woman (this is from the director of Girlfight after all), it is the only one to contain any element of wincing brutality. Apart from that its computer game fodder ad nauseum as our hero plods through levels snapping the neck of any masked goon to stand in her way.
Stylistically trying to evoke the bizarre, European flavour of The Fifth Element’s day-glo aesthetic Aeon Flux’s costumes may be the start of something unique but as a world of the future it’s ultimately an experiment in the bland. Even Aeon herself mourns it in her drab, black catsuit and though the filmmakers haven’t gone the easy road and mimicked black leather and shades from the world of The Matrix she unfortunately carries the hangover of Trinity’s stone-faced tough girl. With the rest of the cast equally as excited to be there as a Harrison Ford Blade Runner voiceover there is little to alleviate the general mood of solemn ‘take the money and run’ apathy. A weighty issue, and an important one in today’s climate, is buried under TV acting, leaden one-liners and a dull sci-fi world that isn’t worth the 90 minutes it takes to save it.
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