Aeon Flux

Welcome to the change in ways blog readers. As noted in a previous post from now I my fiancee and I will be going through our collection in alphabetical order...and so the first film in our list was...Aeon Flux. Now to say fiancee was not impressed with this being the first film was an understatement. She does not do Sci-Fi...which will be interesting as we plow through the films...anyway...on we go....


Aeon Flux (2003) starring Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, Jonny Lee Miller, and Frances McDormand .

Before...now with the films that are in our collection it will be difficult to do a before as I have seen most of them already...so I shall see if my previous watching experience is the same as my recent watching experience. So the first time I saw this film was at the cinema, I had gone into Southampton to do an evening double bill of film watching. This was the second film...the first was Brokeback Mountain. So after watching Brokeback Mountain I was pleased to get to see a less deep and heavy film. Aeon Flux was a fun, Orwellian/Big Brother style movie that was enjoyable to watch...will it have the same impact on me 6 years later....read on!

The year is 2415. 400 years after a virus wiped out half of the world's population, the people that survived the virus now live in Bragna, a fortified city that is surrounded by a wall isolating the people from the virus infested rest of the world. Living in Bragna City, Aeon Flux (Theron), a mysterious female assassin who works for a underground group of rebels led by Handler (McDormand). Aeon's latest assignment is to assassinate Trevor Goodchild (Csokas, a member of the council that controls Bragna City. When Aeon's younger sister Una is killed by government agents, Aeon disobeys orders and decides to protect Trevor, and suspects Trevor's brother Oren (Lee Miller) and the council members are plotting against Trevor. And when Handler learns Aeon failed the mission, Handler orders Aeon to be eliminated, and Aeon must risk everything as she not only protects Trevor, but also uncovers secrets and answers about her mysterious past and the government and all life in Bragna City itself.

The fiancée's view..."The Matrix with a story, BUT seems really low budget and not really a film for girls (at least girls like me!!). Way better than I had expected though, but I expected it to be so crap I wouldn't even watch it. Bad acting, bad special effects, totally unbelievable and totally unmemorable. Ask me in 10 minutes whether I have seen this film and I will have forgotten I have even watched it. ★★☆☆☆ "

Where to start…this film is the first of many of the alphabetic ordered DVD film watching that my fiancée and I are embarking on, so sit back and enjoy! ☺ The film’s main problem for me is pace. At times it feels as though it is speeding through at break-neck speed, and at others it feels as though it slows down to a crawl, as if to help it’s audience to catch up on the “highly complex” plot. This stop and start attitude almost gives you motion sickness, though not as bad as the car chase in Bourne Supremacy, it's constant slowing and speeding up it's testament, I feel, to the roots of the film. Originally it was a MTV cartoon, and it seems fitting that the director thought that in order to keep it's audience watching he needed this pace, after all the MTV generation need constant stimulus...right?? Hmmmm maybe not!

Problem number 2, the plot isn’t complex at all, if anything it is very basic, you could tell there was going to be some monumental reveal in the movie. It doesn't take a genius to piece together this plot and it offers no real attraction to the viewer. Instead of enticing the reader in, the film seems to want to take a moral stand on cloning and living your life in the now. Surely the original cartoon was nothing like this. If I was the director I would be pretty sure that she got some good security, as she has changed it so much that the fans of Aeon Flux must be battering her door down with pitch forks and flaming torches.

It is a shame, I think that McDormand and Pete Postlethwaite were given such small parts, because they make the actors around them raise their game in way of acting. Any scene they are in seems to be ibrant and attractive. Although Theron tries her best, it is obvious that she does not feel completely comfortable in the role, don't get me wrong she plays her part very well, as do most of the cast, but there is that little something missing from most of the actors. As if they are holding back.

Time to move onto the good things that I like about this film. Firstly the low budget feel that it gives is done well, although just a shade under 70 million in comparison with most blockbusters this is cheap. This film is no Matrix in way of graphics but with the money available it has done a fantastic job. From the needle grass to the mobile bombs, from the character with hands for feet to the Hindenburg-esque relic, what we are given is a few quality pieces of CGI. The film, in my view, does not over use CGI, either that or it is done so well it doesn’t feel like CGI, and that is one of the things I love.

The other thing that I found appealing of this film was the Big Brother is watching/Huxley-esque slant to the film. I love films that deliver an alternative future reality, although this is not as slick and stylish as some done, it still gives a good stab and makes an attempt at a twist, which is relatively clumsy.

Overall I felt slightly underwhelmed after watching this film. The movie that I once remembered had it's bubble burst if I am honest...Slick and stylish it once was, but now it seems my tastes have matured and I have lost that loving feeling with this film. It has gone from a 4 star movie to a...

★★☆☆☆