I do have some movies from both RedBox and Netflix to review for you guys, but I decided to go with a movie from my collection because a nap went long and I needed a short movie. The one I chose? Aeon Flux, starring Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, and Sophie Okonedo (who I remember as the horny chiefs daughter from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls). Why did I choose this movie? I have no howling idea.
Aeon Flux is a movie made about from a strangely popular cartoon that I think I used to watch on MTV back in the day. And the movie seems to have captured the essence of that cartoon because, just like with the cartoon, it’s very stylized, very confusing, and I’m always waiting to see boobs but inevitably going to get disappointed. From what little information I was able to gleam from the movie, here’s my best attempt at the plot. Aeon Flux (Theron) is a top assassin for a group of anarchists trying to bring down a corrupt government. She is also really hot. She first needs to take out their surveillance and, while doing so, she finds that the government has ordered the murder of her sister because they overheard the two of them talking about the mission. Why they didn’t instead stop Aeon from completing the mission and instead choose to piss off the top assassin by killing her sister, your guess is as good as mine. So her next mission is to give her an opportunity for revenge. She is to kill the head of the government, Trevor Goodchild (Csokas), because he is, in fact, a very badchild. She gets through the strange security system (of coconuts that shoot darts and razor blade grass) along with her monkey-footed companion, Sithandra (Okonedo). Sithandra has had hands put on in place of her feet, much like a monkey, which to me seems like a bit of a racist thing for someone to do with a black actress. Aeon reaches Goodchild and finds that she can’t kill him. She’s captured, she escapes, then she meets up with and sexes up Goodchild because it turns out she’s a clone of his wife, and in fact everyone in this world is cloned because they can’t have babies anymore. And then Oren Verybadchild, Goodchild’s brother, is apparently trying to keep it that way by killing anyone who can have a baby so he can be the big boss man. Then Aeon has to stop it.
Aeon Flux is a fairly pretty movie to look at. Beyond the obvious “Charlize Theron in skimpy and/or skin tight clothes”, the setting and costumes are stylish and often colorful. The story itself, when you can understand it, is typical and predictable, but not necessarily bad. The action is okay, no real complaints but far from mind-blowing. It’s mainly a lot of Charlize Theron wrapping her legs around people’s heads and then breaking their necks, which I have always maintained is EXACTLY the way I want to go. And … uh … let’s see, other good things … okay, that’s all I had.
My first question, which is a take away from the old cartoon, even if you were such a badass that you could catch a fly with your eyelash, would you ever want to? No thank you, Aeon. Now, being really quiet and robotic is the kind of performance this movie calls for, but I would certainly recommend doing it in a way that is still interesting. I can’t presently think of anyone who has pulled off turning a wooden performance interesting, but I’m sure it’s possible. …Hugo Weaving! That’s one. When he was the agent in the Matrix, and to a lesser extent Elrond in Lord of the Rings, it was a quiet, emotionless performance (not because of Weaving, but because that’s what the part called for) and yet he was interesting. Perhaps you just can’t make the lead the emotionless one. And this was the next big movie for Theron since winning the Oscar for Monster. So either she wanted a rest from all that acting in Monster so she could take it easy with Aeon, or she just wanted to show people “Look, I’m hot again”. I’ve already said that the story is confusing and the action is meh at best, so I won’t harp on that further. I’m not sure what I went into this movie thinking I was in store for. I vaguely remember the MTV cartoon, but I never understood it and I’m pretty sure all I was watching it for was because it always seemed like there was some howling about to happen, if you know what I’m saying. I’m sure there’s a lot of people more nerdy than I that loved the cartoon, but it wasn’t for me. Neither was it’s significantly worse movie.
Aeon Flux: Go ahead and skip it, unless you just need noise in the background and just want to look over at some hot Charlize every now and then. But I’d say get Hancock for that. It’s much better. …out of 822. That’s how many words I had typed!
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