Æon Flux (or, Arguments for burning the MTV science fiction wing)

Æon Flux is to movies what hair bands are to music: All style no substance. Well, sort of. Actually there is a reasonable amount of substance to the flick and some quite intricate and interesting ideas being played out but it is all glossed over with lycra, hairspray and dicey editing that nothing really comes of it.

Of course, the film looks fantastic. Charlize tries terribly hard to pull a Jolie but can't quite manage it. It wasn't till the final shot that I realised why. It is that she looks like a chipmunk storing nuts in her cheeks. The original cartoon was very harsh, boney (beautiful) and angular. Charlize is a little too rounded and even an over relience on close-ups of hands and legs can't disguise that fact. Nor can it make bad fight scenes look slick and interesting.

All this is a pity because the original cartoon was rather good. Actually, strike that (I would do it myself but Blogger doesn't have a strike through option) because therein lies the problem. Just because something works as a two minute series of shorts (or half hour cartoon serial) doesn't mean it will translate into a one and a half hour film. It isn't a pity it didn't translate, hopefully it will convince people to stop trying.

The original Æon Flux was devoid of dialogue and fueled by futility. It worked because it was obtuse, it hinted at a broad mythology but never gave enough information to allow the audience to piece it together. The film version tries to play on that but gives the game away at the same time. Trying to be obtuse while spelling everything out is a one way ticket to box office and critical disaster!

Tickets please!

P.S. Go and see it for the hair though. Why else do you listen to Flock of Seagulls?

And another thing. Check out the imdb message board thread here. It wasn't so long ago that people were complaining that MTV movies were for people with no attention spans, now people are being attacked because they can't even sit through one of those.