Æon Flux

Review by Jason Gaston

I've gotta say before I begin this review that I loved Æon Flux when it was a cartoon on MTV. You remember back when MTV actually meant something, right? Back when they would actually show videos without Carson Daily and a bunch of screaming teenagers interrupting them every fifteen seconds? Back when MTV didn't revolve around snotty 16 year old girls getting the perfect birthday party or insecure high school morons getting made into something they weren't?

Back in the day when MTV was doing real innovative programming like Beavis and Butt-Head, Liquid Television, The State, The Brothers Grunt, and of course the super kickass Æon Flux. Hard to believe that the programming of MTV today actually makes something like Beavis and Butt-Head look intelligent, but that's what's happened to this network now. I mean, VH1 has a better pulse on the world than MTV does.

Before I watched Æon Flux the movie, I watched all the episodes of the television series. Even today its a strange animal... a mix of inventive science fiction and all out bizarre eroticism that makes even one like myself a little squeamish at times. Sad to say that the movie is a completely different kind of beast. Sure, the eroticism is there but it's more of a sexy kind of eroticism and not the kind that the cartoon seemed to enjoy creating.

Call me crazy, but I actually think that was one of the charms of Æon Flux was that it seemed to delight in making everyone watching it as uncomfortable as it could while still telling a messed up yet intriguing story. The movie, on the other hand, while still staying firmly rooted in strange science fiction seems to be content showing off some sexy curves.

Not a bad thing, mind you, but it makes for a watered down adaptation.

Æon Flux the movie takes place in the 25th century. A virus ran through the human race back in the early 21st century and wiped out 95 percent of the population. It was eventually cured by a scientist named Trevor Goodchild who became the leader of the last city on Earth. The Goodchilds rule the people of this city which many consider a utopia, but there are others who question policy and are suspicious about strange activities and kidnappings and the main character, Æon, is one of them. Together with a secret resistance, Æon and her allies seek to end the Goodchild regime, but the secret that they are about to uncover will put everyone on both sides in a whole new light.

Æon Flux isn't great science fiction, but it's good science fiction. It's not a great adaptation, but it's a good one.

The movie is serviceable entertainment. It's not thought provoking or even that intelligent and a lot of the actual science is iffy at best (but, then again, that's why it's called science fiction and not science faction). I will say that the plot of this movie does contain a couple of nice twists that makes it pretty good B grade material as opposed to C grade material.

Æon Flux isn't great entertainment but it's good entertainment. I've certainly seen worse, but the movie doesn't translate the cartoon's strange charm.  Still, it's a decent movie in of itself.

However, while I am an advocate of a faithful adaptation I just gotta say... catching a fly with the eyelash? Yeah, that's something that really should have never been translated to live action. It just looked silly.