SNMR 2.23: "Aeon Flux"

Tonight's SNMR feature is "Aeon Flux" (2005, PG-13, 92 minutes) starring Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, Sophie Okonedo, Jonny Lee Miller, Pete Postlethwaite, Francis McDormand and Amelia Warner. The film was directed by Karyn Kusama.

I bought this movie solely because Charlize Theron was the star and had never seen either the comic books or the MTV animated series, so I had no idea what to expect and I was somewhat disappointed. Shortly after I watched this movie, I bought and watched the animated series and the premise for the film made much more sense. So I watched it again and I liked it better.

From the DVD's dust case:

Expertly Trained. Ruthlessly Efficient. Academy Award winner Charlize Theron (Best Actress, Monster, 2003) stars as Aeon Flux, the underground operative fighting totalitarian rule in the 25th century Earth's last living city.
Aeon is the rebels' best hope of overthrowing the oppressively sterile, "perfect" society. But while on assignment to gun down the government's leader, Aeon uncovers a web of startling secrets that could completely change the world's future in this gripping sci-fi action thriller based on the ground-breaking MTV animated series.

From Martin & Porter's DVD & Video Guide 2007, p. 11:

Five (actually four) hundred years in the future, a professional assassin (Charlize Theron) works with an underground army rebelling against an oppressive totalitarian society. The live-action version of the cult-classic comic book (and MTV animated series) has a sleek, streamlined look (with some great costumes for Theron), but the story is uninvolving, with too much solemn talk and not enough interesting characters or action.

This movie won't make much sense unless you've seen the comic books or animated series. If you have, you'll enjoy this film much more than if you haven't. Still, it's hard to make a good live action film from a comic book and short lived cartoon, so given the base material, this is a decent film. The special effects are good but probably aren't enough of them. The story has promise and could have been developed further but stays pretty faithful to the source material. All in all a fair film. I'll give it a two and three-qaurters out of five stars.