Review of Æon Flux

Æon Flux (2005)
1/10
Booooo
6 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
If you're a fan of the original series, do NOT see this movie.

I should have been skeptical from the previews when Aeon expresses her motives for murder. In the series Aeon had no family and no motive for her adventures save selfish interests. Obviously the chimp-writer in charge felt the movie needed to cater to the "bad grrl" demographic by making the character deadly, but have a good reason to kill people.

You wouldn't have thought it possible, but the movie is more two dimensional than the cartoon. The characters are all portrayed as inherently good with some conflict of interest that eventually gets resolved. All dogs go to heaven, and same for every character that dies in this movie.

The selfish,twisted,perverted, dominating personas of Aeon and Trevor are nowhere to be seen. In the end they literally develop into a cutesy couple ala Annie Hall. The only character who remained true to the show was the Relicle, the floating machine in the sky. I suppose if you ever thought "gee, I like Aeon Flux, but I wish it were more like every other faceless good-v-evil sci-fi Hollywood slop out there", then you are in for a treat.

They didn't even get the look right. I suppose a black metal bikini was too much to ask for, but the whole setting is wrong. 400 years into the future sure looks like 30 years into the past. Instead of a distinctly urban post-apocalyptic world, the viewer's eyes are offended with a 70's mod-squad frutopia of egg-shaped furniture, wood paneled walls, earth tones, and lots of plants. Bregna was a dystopia, not a utopia.

Speaking of Bregna, that's the only city on earth according to the movie. The show is clear that there are two cities, Bregna and Monica, which used to be one. In the movie, the "Monicans" are just Hollywood storybook freedom-fighters. They also have as much technology as the Bregnans, which is not the case from the show.

The only possible conclusion is that the real writer for this movie was a high school kid, and that he wrote it the day before it was due to the studio execs, and he's never seen an entire Aeon Flux all the way through. The overwhelming amount of inconsistency with the cartoon is baffling. Beyond using certain names like Aeon Flux, Trevor Goodchild, and Bregna, the movie is nothing like the show.

The actual bulk of the movie seems to try to blend the colorful plots of soy-lent green, blade runner, Logan's run, and tomb raider, which came out a dull brown mess.
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