Æon Flux (2005)

There's a small part of me that is glad that Æon Flux isn't all that good, because otherwise I would have to spend a lot more time on the internet shouting (metaphorically) at people who have yet to recognise the greatness of Karyn Kusama. She's the director here, and this is the only movie I have seen from her that I haven't liked. And even with it being such a messy failure, I cannot bring myself to truly hate it.

Charlize Theron is the lead, playing the titular character. It's the future. People tend to generally be happy. But there's something amiss, which is why a group of rebels are trying to overthrow the government. Flux is an assassin in that group of rebels, and she may be the one person with the key to unlock everything. Obviously.

Only the second feature film from Kusama, working with writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (who would both do much better work collaborating on her later movies), Æon Flux feels very much like what it is, a strange vision from a talented artist who then had that vision meddled with by people who had no idea what to really do with it. The main plot is simple enough to allow Kusama to take pleasure in the small details of the world depicted onscreen, but all of that potential pleasure is ruined by the absolute mess elsewhere. It's hard to care about any of the main characters, most of the action scenes are edited clumsily, at best, and none of the quirky humour can land while viewers are distracted by, well, everything else.

Theron is as good here, overall, as she usually is. I mean she's definitely a movie star, and this is a star vehicle, but it's hard to judge her performance while also considering what she's given to work with, and how everything was then edited. Marton Csokas and Jonny Lee Miller are key figures in the government, and Miller at least gets to have some more fun than the majority of the cast. Sophie Okonedo has to stay pretty straight-faced while portraying another rebel who has had hands grafted on to where her feet used to be, and both Frances McDormand and Pete Postlethwaite are given roles that very much waste their talents. Nobody else is worth mentioning, apart from Paterson Joseph, but that's only because I like Paterson Joseph so much.

Having not seen any of the original animated series that first introduced viewers to this character, I cannot say how this compares to that (although I am going to assume that it wouldn't be a favourable comparison). All I can go on is the final result, what we got on our screens. If it wasn't for Theron, it's hard to see how this would appeal to anyone. Look a bit harder, however, and there are fleeting moments that can help to make this more bearable. And it's definitely a film I would love to see in a director's cut form.
4/10

There's a disc available here.
Americans can buy it here.