![]() This model, during which characters shift allegiances without explanation, somewhat justifies the jarring personality incongruities between film and game. Presented in fractured chronological order, Aeon Flux pays tribute to the obtuse episodic nature of Peter Chung’s original animated series, which aired on MTV in 1995. While the individual levels are largely linear - the Model Behavior stage especially, because it’s part tutorial - the game as a whole willfully eschews narrative cohesion. The movie never verbally referenced Theron’s attractiveness - a relief for an actress who has battled typecasting throughout her career - but it takes the game mere seconds to drop her on the catwalk. (Incidentally, gladiatorial reality shows and genetically modified fruit might be terrifying topics, but they’re more ripped-from-the-headlines than futuristic fodder.) Aeon enters the contest as a cover for her clandestine surveillance work in Goodchild’s laboratories, but the context still feels like a betrayal. Merging fashion and fascism, Goodchild stages a lethal runway competition in his own coliseum. She’s also saddled with the game’s biggest groaner: joking about how she disguised analytical equipment as a buffet table because the models won’t go near it.Īh yes, models. Una, a sweetly naive utopian complement to sister Aeon’s uncompromising rebellion, denigrates into a one-note nag. Trevor Goodchild, the dignified dictator and regal romantic foil, becomes a sleazily sadistic arch-enemy. The video game forces Aeon to witlessly quip “roll out” every time she releases the pliant globules. ![]() In the film, Theron summoned her orbs (basically, ball bearings that respond to her commands) with a mystical whistle that intertwined nicely with an ambient electronic backdrop. Theron’s been digitized nicely, but Aeon’s magnetism was lost during the transition. But while the film transcended genre stereotypes, the game, a graceless parade of charisma-bereft characters and generic apocalyptic-Tomorrowland backdrops, brutally reinforces them.Ĭharlize Theron, who stepped into Aeon’s burlesque-cosmonaut wardrobe and trademark monotone for the ostensible blockbuster, reprises the part for the platform companion. Like its theatrical counterpart, Aeon Flux the video game enters the market at a distinct disadvantage, in this case because movie tie-ins are often inept. ![]() The storyline, rich with philosophical complications, unfurls with the ominous grace of the sinewy fabric that hangs from the floating blimp memorial that circles the characters’ captive city. ![]() Its morally ambiguous leads, an idealistic assassin and a secretly benevolent overlord, attract empathy without being stuffed into reductionist roles. It uses quick-flash expository shots to diminish the need for dialog, exemplified by a scene in which it wordlessly depicts a pivotal treasonous act with a concise communication chain. The former group dismisses abstract futurism outright, demanding documentary realism from surreal scenarios, while the latter accepts fantastical realms while anachronistically tethering them to existing scientific criteria.įor viewers willing to disregard its studio’s self-sabotage and the sci-fi stigma, Aeon Flux offers a thought-provoking plot and dazzling presentation. Judging from their transparent disdain for sci-fi, snobby cinematic connoisseurs fancy themselves light years removed from fanboys, yet the two camps share a stubborn streak. Professional reviewers bashed Aeon Flux for being oblique, which is just as absurd as Resident Evil message board posters who debate the physics of the laser-grid scene. The film’s pivotal problem was that it was too geeky for highbrow film buffs and not geeky enough for science fiction’s most esoteric enthusiasts. Instead, it drew viciously inaccurate comparisons to the hapless Catwoman, based on the most simplistic of similarities: both movies were commercial flops starring Oscar-winning actresses. This makes the brutal response even more baffling, because Aeon Flux needed only to exceed deflated expectations. Paramount Pictures invited some of the scorn by choosing not to screen the movie for critics in advance, a strategy usually reserved exclusively for fetid films. The most unjustly reviled theatrical release of 2005, Aeon Flux absorbed nearly unanimous critical punishment upon its release.
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