As a big Peter Chung fan, I saw the previews and cringed. They made certain the only early showings for reviewers were at 10 PM or later the night before opening, which is never a good sign. The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes seem to think it’s pretty bad, and a few point to Really Bad Science [tm], or a Terrible Ending [tm].
So… I don’t wanna take the bullet. Can someone do it for me, pleeeeeeeease?
The verb is “spoil.”
Carry on.
–Cliffy
I’m guessing if you’ve seen the ads, you’ve already seen all the cool scenes.
Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers
(disclosure, I work for the film company that is distributing it)
I was never a huge fan of the cartoon. Mostly because I never caught it often enough.
I am a Sci-fi fan though. I thought it was a decent Sci-fi movie. I think the costumes, well Charlize’s costumes, were pretty cool. They used ‘nature’ in a very interesting way throughout the film. My biggest problems is that the actors for the two brothers that are the main characters besides Aeon were kind of weak. One is Clive Owens light and the other was just blah.
Now for the real spoilers.
400 years in the future there is only one city on earth. The rest of the planet is completely wild with vegetation. (killer virus, few survivors) The city is nice and clean and orderly and the people never leave. However people occasionally disappear for no reason. Also, there is this blimp like thing that circles around the city as a ‘memorial’ to the dead. Aeon, and other ‘rebels’ have this strange ability to get messages from a mysterious person that directs the rebels. Swallow a pill and then an interactive message plays in her brain.
Anyway Aeon has a little sister and one night, the police come for Aeon but kill her instead. Now Aeon is pissed. Add to that the woman orders to kill the president and you have one motivated killer. The President and his little brother and a council of sorts run the city. The president is like a king. His ancestor found the cure for the virus and his family has run things ever since. But the younger brother is actually aiming to take over. With few clues it was easy for me to figure out that they are clones. Not just the brothers, but everyone in the entire city. See the virus made everyone sterile. But the older brother did figure out how to clone people in the process of finding a cure. So he and his brother have been passing the acclumined research into how to get women fertile again for 400 years. They are the only people who knew that everyone was a clone. When a couple ‘gets pregnant’ the government implants a clone into he womb but disappears the previous copy. Of course there are problems developing with all of the copies so we really need to find a cure so nature can takes it course.
Now Aeon is special. Even though it’s been 400 years, this is the first time she has been cloned. Her original person was the girlfriend of the President. So she feels this twing and doesn’t kill him. (This leads her to figureing out the clone business) Couple of big gun fights and the younger brother admits that women are getting pregnant again on their own but he wants the city to stay orderly and keep the one dies, one is born thing going. Aeon finds her sister, a little newborn baby, and there are more gunfights and such and finally the wall is torn down and people venture out into the messy nature. (rather like the end of Logan’s Run)
For me the worst thing is that it is never revealed that the younger brother and the mystry woman that directs the rebels are in league. They should have been. But they weren’t.
It’s good for a matinee. I think the film is much better in a theatre than it would be on home video. There are some cool visiuals like the woman with four hands, no feet, and engineered nature as weapons.
Speaking of spoilers, can anyone point me to that website which spoils the endings for hundreds of movies? I saw a link on this board once, but can’t find it again.
Was it one of these?
Bahh…I was there until it got to the clones. No good movie has ever been made which used cloning as a significant plot point (well, maybe Gattaca). I was hoping the movie would retain some of the surrealism and inexplicability of the cartoon. The cartoon never explained anything, it was just about bizarre little visual sequences and Aeon always got killed. Clones…bah.
I don’t suppose Charlize gets naked in this thing?
That was the one. Thanks.
Since she was the one who insisted the Aeon’s costume be made more concealing, I doubt it.
BTW-
The memorial blimp and the woman with four hands are from the graphic novel The Herodotus Files and the cartoon respectively. Except for the message pill, it doesn’t sound like any of Chung’s other ideas made it to the screen.
Agreed. Aeon Flux with a backstory, especially a needlessly elaborate backstory like this one, isn’t Aeon Flux. Think I’ll save my money and get a large popcorn for Kong.
There is a really nice chainmail halter top she wears. But that’s about it.
The other strange thing about the movie is that it is totally serious. There is really only one laugh line in the entire movie. and it wasn’t that funny.
I had to see it to write a review. I’ll give you the short form:
Slightly better than Highlander II.
Well that sounds utterly, utterly horrid. They seem to have missed the point entirely. What was so intriguing about the original was the kink and the mystery of Aeon and Trevor’s relationship, made all the more lucious by Denise Poirier and John Rafter Lee’s excellent voice work. Giving them MOTIVATIONS ruins it!
(I’ve actually had the pleasure of working with John, BTW. He’s charming in person and a wonderful actor.)
Having been subjected to an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) of this movie, with trailers and b-roll shots, I have to say four words: worst movie this year.
Academy award winning actress & no previews.
Doesn’t say it all- but does say an awful lot.
Hmmm. I bought the DVD in preparation for seeing the movie, but maybe I should just stick to watching the DVDs. I just checked out the first five episodes, and my mind is blown as badly as it’s been since I started reading Robert Anton Wilson.
I actually kind of liked it.
It is said that the younger brother is using the rebels and that they don’t know that they’re being used.
The movie was pretty stinkin’ bad. fnord.
“If you don’t see the movie, it can’t eat you.”
Interesting. Our Globe and Mail critic (Rick Groen or Liam Lacey, can’t remember which) is notorious for being tough–especially on blockbuster, flashy-action-type movies like Aeon Flux–and he gave it three stars out of five, which is a pretty dam’ good review. (He almost never gives out four, and five must be some unholy sacrilege to the gods.)