Aeon Flux (2005)

I've never heard much of anything good about Aeon Flux. Hardcore fans of the MTV cartoon series shunned the film for not staying to the true grit of it's animated ancestor and the average moviegoer seemed to find it boring, confusing and enjoyable only to those who are fans of cult sci-fi films, well if you read any of my reviews on films considered "cult classic" you'll see I'm usually not a big fan, but Aeon Flux is different.

The year is 2415 and the only remaining civilization on Earth is a paradise called Bregna. Established 400 years ago after a virus nearly killed off the entire human race, leaving only 5 million to attempt to survive and rebuild their lives. The city has been ruled by the Goodchild family for these four decades, all decedents of the man who discovered the cure for the deadly virus. But some of the inhabitants of Bregna are growing weary of their leader Trevor Goodchild, many citizens have been mysteriously disappearing and the people are too scared to do anything about it. A resistance group known as the Monicans is taking justice into their own hands. They believe Trevor is responsible for the sporadic disappearance of people in the city, and intend to send their best agent to eliminate Trevor, Aeon Flux.

Aeon's sister was recently murdered by the Goodchild's army of assassins when she was thought to have been a Monican, so revenge aims to be a good persuasion for Aeon to carry out her mission. But she's soon about to find out that this mission won't be as cut and dry as she bargained, there's much more behind the disappearing citizens, the murder of her sister and the basis of their existence than meets the eye!

I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed this film. What's great is Aeon Flux wastes no time getting into the plot, no beating around the bush. Maybe this is where the film loses a majority of viewers it takes a little bit of following along to not get lost in the films beginning. But it's really quite easy to grasp what's going on with very little effort. Probably the most confusing part of the film for me was the part right after Aeon's sister is killed and she receives her mission to kill Trevor, the way it's edited it seems like this all happened relatively quickly but if you listen to the dialogue there's obviously some passage of time in between the two occurrences, although it's never told how long.

Overall, I found Aeon Flux quite entertaining, obviously the film is beautiful, that's one thing most people seem to be able to agree on, but I fail to understand why people found this to be dull. The look of the film and the special effects alone keep this film from being boring, and the story is actually quite well written with a few twist and turns that play out in the film quite well. The only thing I can attribute to being dull is the characters, but that actually seems to be a thread with this type of sci-fi film. It's something that's also seen in a similar film called Blade Runner, a cult classic sci-fi film which has grown in popularity over the years, but in my opinion happens to be an overall example of dull. If you didn't get the hype of Blade Runner, like myself, then Aeon Flux might be your type of film. I found Aeon Flux to take a similar subject matter and make it a little more entertaining.

7/10