Aeon Flux

Aeon Flux is the big screen live action version of the MTV animated series created by Peter Chung. Although it is always dangerous to make anime into live action, director Karyn Kusama places just the right amount of emphasis on the homage to the genre. The set place action scenes invoke the cartoon origins of the story well. Charlize Theron plays Aeon, the sexy resistance fighter, with a good balance between the cartoon and human character.

The plot: Aeon Flux is a resistance fighter, or Monican as they are known in this city of 15 million people living 400 years in the future. With the human race almost wiped out by a plague, the survivors live in the wall ed city of Bregna, under the rule of the Goodchild dynasty (descended from the scientist who found the cure that saved the remnants of humanity).

The Monicans (is this word play on Mohican?) fight to overthrow the Goodchilds, which is more of an autocracy - the ruler is Chairman Trevor Goodchild, deputy is his brother Oren and there is also a sort of advisory council. Aeon Flux is dispatched by the resistance leader on a mission to kill Trevor Goodchild. However, when she comes face to face with him she realises that there is something more to her past and eventually unravels the deep secret upon which Bregna is based.

This is where I reveal the secrets, so stop reading if you don't want it spoilt.

Bregna, it turns out, is a 400-year-old society of clones. A fairly major side-effect of the 'cure' is sterility. Goodchild got around this by recycling the DNA of everyone once they died, and implanting unsuspecting - yet hopeful - couples with cloned foetuses. Trevor and Oren, it seems, are the only Bregnans to actually have their identities passed down from clone to clone. They teach themselves their history with each generation. But now Trevor has found a cure to the sterility and he discovers to his horror that Oren has been killing off his successful test subjects, as he has grown attached to the monarchic and 'perfect' life that they have created in Bregna.

Aeon is the key to convincing Trevor that he must end the status quo - she is the clone of his past love, kept safe from Oren, who ordered her DNA destroyed, for generations until some sort of computer-controlled guardian thought it time to bring her back. Their shared 'genetic memory' of each other - love knows no bounds - ensures their connection. Together they defeat Oren and save the people of Bregna.

In summary: Aeon Flux is a relatively stylish and, for its genre, well-made action, fantasy film. Charlize Theron certainly adds depth and style to the role of Aeon, although I think that her wardrobe could have been designed a little better.

The Casablanca comparison: Trevor Goodchild is like Rick - he has his own four-walled zone where he is ruler and those escaping the outside chaos have fled, only to live in a kind of shell of internal turmoil, trapped in a pleasantly entertaining yet unreal existence. Like Rick, Trevor also holds the key to escape and needs the love of a good woman whom he lost in a past life in order to help him do what is right. Stretching the bow on this comparison? I don't think so, at least not as much as I've had to do in other reviews.

The rating: 7 out of 10. Aeon Flux delivers good action and performances from its leads, a decent story line and Charlize Theron. You can't ask much more from a film.