| Major Cast (29 remaining) | |
|---|---|
| Charlize Theron | as Aeon Flux |
| Marton Csokas | as Trevor Goodchild |
| Jonny Lee Miller | as Oren Goodchild |
| Sophie Okonedo | as Sithandra |
| Frances McDormand | as Handler |
| Pete Postlethwaite | as Keeper |
| Amelia Warner | as Una Flux |
| Caroline Chikezie | as Freya |
| Nikolai Kinski | as Claudius |
| Paterson Joseph | as Giroux |
| Yangzom Brauen | as Inari |
| Aoibheann O'Hara | as Scientist |
| Thomas Huber | as Scientist |
| Weijian Liu | as Scientist |
| Maverick Quek | as Chemist |
| Ralph Herforth | as Gardener |
| Megan Gay | as Weaver |
| Ranier Will | as Commander Puhl |
| Charlie Beall | as Lieutenant Ord |
| Bruno Bruni | as Armory Soldier |
| Ronald Marx | as Bregnan Police Captain |
| Axel Schreiber | as Policeman |
| Katie Mullins | as Neighbor |
| Shaun Laughton | as Man in Marketplace |
| Terry Bartlett | as Monican Spy |
| Betty Okino | as Monican Spy |
| Anatole Taubman | as Sasha Prillo's Father |
| Lavinia Wilson | as Sasha Prillo's Mother |
| Khira Lilli Pobanz | as Sasha Prillo (Baby Una) |
| William Morts | as Guard |
| Phil Hay | as Soldier |
| Nils Dommning | as Young Trevor |
| Bojan Heyn | as Young Oren |
| MPAA Rating: | PG-13 |
| Production Companies: | * Paramount Pictures * Lakeshore Entertainment * Valhalla Motion Pictures * MTV Films * MTV Productions * Colossal Pictures |
| Distributors (USA): | * Paramount Pictures (theatrical) * Paramount Home Entertainment (DVD/Blu-ray) |
| Release Date (US): | 12/02/2005 |
| Running Time: | 93 Minutes |
| Languages: | English |
| Domestic Box Office: | $25,857,987 (2/03/2006) |
| Foreign Box Office: | $? |
| Production Budget: | $62,000,000 (Est.) |
Due to an unspecified catastrophe, Earth as a whole is uninhabitable. Only in the city of Bregnan does any civilization persist. But the city is stagnant, its life regimented, its people unable to reproduce. The chairman, Trevor Goodkind, has been experimenting to restore fecundity to his people. Unknown to him, his brother Oren has been sabotaging his work.
Meanwhile, rebels known as the Monicans are working to overthrow the government, represented by a council which Trevor heads. The redheaded leader of the Monicans, known as Handler and seen only as a virtual-reality image transmitted via "message pills," sends Aeon Flux to shut down the city's surveillance systems. She does this with ease. But in the meantime her sister Una is killed by the secret police for no apparent reason.1
Aeon's next assignment is to kill Trevor Goodkind. She goes in with an associate called Cassandra, who has another pair of hands where her feet used to be. They penetrate the treacherous gardens around the government zone. Cassandra remains on guard as Aeon goes in. She defeats the government guards and their formidable weaponry with almost ridiculous ease, but when she confronts him she balks after he calls her Kathryn. They have had a prior relationship, it seems, although she barely remembers it. Her hesitation allows her to be knocked out and imprisoned. She whistles up some smart spheres which roll up the wall of her cell and explode, freeing her.
In due course we learn that the society has survived by cloning since whatever tragedy befell the planet 400 years before. But the cloning is gradually degrading people. The only hope is Trevor's experiments. Unknown to him, they have succeeded — but Oren has been killing the subject women who have become pregnant on the pretext that they are Monicans. Aeon Flux discovers the truth. Now she must rescue Trevor, who has been deposed by Oren, and elude the other Monicans who have been told to eliminate her as a traitor because she balked at killing the chairman.
This movie held together more coherently than I expected it would. I also have the overall impression that it hews too closely to its comic-book origins, leading it to rely too much on too-terse dialog, far-fetched gadgets and impossibly athletic fight scenes. However, it is redeemed by the plot twists, energetic acting from Theron, and its theme of saving what remains of humanity by restoring natural birth and death.
The version I bought came with a bonus disc that gives a view of the special effects in the film. The main disc has commentaries about other aspects of the film's production.
My Rating:
7 out of 10
Capsule review: Aeon Flux goes overboard with the fancy fights and futuristic gadgets, but the plot twists, the energetic acting, and the premise of restoring natural birth to save humanity make it worth watching more than once.
| IMDB Rating: 5.5 | Raters: 116,169 |
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