Rating of
2/4
Aeon Re-Flux
writeandleft - wrote on 10/25/08
Based on the MTV animated series of the same name, AEon Flux is real eye candy as a film - even if the depth just isn't there to sustain the story. The time is 2415, four centuries after a plague wiped out 99% of the world's population. Those left alive where all placed together in a closed-off metropolis called Bregna, once a cure was found by a member of the Goodchild family - and now, over 400 years later, the Goodchilds rule everything, and no one dares go outside of the walled-off city, where nature has again taken control.
But something's wrong in Bregna - various citizens are disappearing for no apparent reason, and the government is ruling with total absolute authority. A rebel resistance known as the Monicans - a group dedicated to overthrowing the control of the Goodchilds - has sprung up, and the film's plots revolves around the Monicans sending in their best assassin, AEon Flux (Theron), in to the Goodchild fortress to kill Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas), the leader of Bregna and oldest descendant of the man who cured the plague.
With help from her good friend - and fellow Monican assassin - Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), AEon makes her way through a minefield of deadly booby traps and literally with inches of Trevor Goodchild - an event that starts a chain-reaction of more events, and leads to AEon realizing that things in Bregna are not exactly what they seem ... and that maybe who are the bad guys and who are the good guys aren't exactly what she's believed them to be.
The film is visually stunning, the actors damned good in their performances, and this saves the film from a lot of what's wrong with it. In a better director's hands, the film could possibly have brought a lot more emotional connection with the viewer than it does as is. But there's just something so ... so "Look at me!" in the whole execution of the film, that it becomes hard to truly dive into the story, or even care a great deal about the characters.
Action sequences are fast and furious - but often done in such extreme closeups, some of the adrenaline is lost. The story is very cool, the actors perfectly cast, and the film itself very colorful and physically beautiful. But beyond that, beyond that feeling that the film is just showing itself off as a product, instead of a flesh and blood story ... there's just, unfortunately, not all that much there for a viewer to buy into emotionally. And on that level, it makes this one a disappointment.
