“Æon” goes mainstream

Æon Flux (2005)
Paramount Pictures presents a Karyn Kusama film, starring Charlize Theron. Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. Characters by Peter Chung. 95m. PG-13 for sequences of violence and sexual content.

2 stars

When “Æon Flux” permeated late-night television ten years ago, it barely caught my attention. The animation, which was unlike any I had seen, wasn’t comforting enough to catch my fancy. Every time I watched for any sustained length of time, the characters would often engage in these maddening philosophical diatribes, and I’d begin to wonder how many minutes it was until “Beavis & Butthead” would air again.

The movie version of “Æon Flux” – which attempts a cohesive narrative and provides motivations to its main characters – was a betrayal of the original series’ spirit, but was more appropriate for mainstream audiences.

It depicts a bleak future in which the majority of the world has succumbed to a virus. The survivors live in a seemingly impregnable city-state, Bregna, which is ruled by the scientist credited with overriding the plague. He is Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas), a constant target for those who seek to undermine his quasi-Fascist rule. Trevor is hunted by Æon Flux (Charlize Theron), an assassin with a circus performer’s grace who takes orders from a mysterious oracle known only as Handler (Frances McDormand).

Monicans, like Æon, despise the government’s Big Brother ideology and its penchant for surreptitiously abducting alleged rebels. As the resistance’s most skilled assassin, Æon is tasked to find Trevor and eliminate him. She’s provided plenty of ammunition when Trevor is implicated in the senseless murder of Æon’s sister, Una (Amelia Warner). There are complications, however, and Æon and Trevor instead find themselves as unlikely allies in a fight against a greater corruption.

Theron begins to expend the equity awarded her after she received an Academy Award for “Monster.” It’s not surprising to see her choose an action film, which has paid stars, like Angelina Jolie, handsomely for their indelible displays of brawn and beauty. In certain ways, Æon Flux is fashioned from the same mold as Laura Croft: a male creator fetishizing an independent-minded savior who is, incidentally, both buxom and scantily-clad.

There’s a hitch, however. The autonomous anarchist that Korean animator Peter Chung created for MTV is decidedly more helpless in her current incarnation. Her conscious decision to be submissive to Trevor is not only a betrayal to her underground faction but also the show’s primary ideology. In the original series, the two banded together as equally intimidating forces.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to enjoy here. Bregna’s environment is teeming with unique characters, like Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), an assassin who opted to replace her feet with an additional set of hands. That modification is especially handy when she teams with Æon to clear a particularly relentless gauntlet and infiltrate Trevor’s headquarters. The stunt choreography is akin to “Mission Impossible” on a graphically-enhanced bender, culminating with Theron leaning precipitously over grass blades with razor sharp edges. It’s enough to get the heart racing.

The original “Æon Flux,” I’m told, drew its influences from short stories like “Arzach,” a wordless creation by the French comic book artist, Moebius. The film’s style is a decidedly less avant-garde, employing a look and feel that is similar to “Minority Report,” or “I, Robot.” It’s all part of a conscious effort to make Æon’s world less confrontational, more homogenized.

The film, which was not screened in advance for critics, was subjected to merciless skewerings after its release Friday. But I wonder what critics would have to say about “Æon Flux” film that acted as an extended episode and retained the spirit of the original. Would they merit points for its daring spirit, or complain incessantly about an intentionally non-linear narrative and dialogue that often waxed poetic with philosophical inanities?