fajrdrako | Aeon Flux...

This afternoon at the Ottawa Science Fiction Society meeting, we watched the Charlize Theron movie, Aeon Flux. It was based on the animated MTV series of the same name, but it changed a lot between the animated version and the live action.

So: the movie. Assorted reactions:

Charlize Theron is incredibly beautiful but this is yet another movie I've seen in which I didn't really like her.¹ The character of Aeon Flux was rather sterile. She wasn't sexy, despite all that superhuman flexibility. I usually find acrobatic characters sexy, but she didn't seem human enough to be sexy. I blame the script, not the acting.

The character I liked best was Trevor Goodchild, played by Marton Csokas - so that at last I see why some fans find him attractive. He was very sexy - which, sadly, Charlize Theron wasn't. His script wasn't any better, though.

Visually, the movie was superb. Plotwise... well, it was slow for a bit, and I almost fell asleep during some of the fight scenes. About two thirds of the way into the movie we did start to get an interesting plot, but it seemed like too little, too late, with no emotional investment. And there were some interesting SF ideas - weapons that were oganic/machine mixtures, places and objects and people that might have been solid or might have been holograms, interesting use of three-dimensional space.

So: it was all very pretty, but empty.

¹ I've actually never liked Charlize Theron much in any movie, and I haven't decided if this is because I've never liked any of the movies I've seen her in, or if there's something about her acting that I find dull. Keep in mind that I haven't seen many of her movies, but since I haven't liked what I did see, the desire to see more isn't strong.