Aeon Flux vs Minority Report

Jeez. Sick of the future? Anyone? Show of hands? Aeon Flux presents yet another glimpse at the horrors that await us. In the year 2011, we're told, a virus wipes out 99% of Earth's civilization. And then the cure is introduced, and the survivors are put into a walled city of peace and happiness (and mystery. Shh, don't tell the survivors), where they live for lifetimes, never questioning what lies outside the walls. Hey, just like in The Island! Which sucked!

But wait, something fishy is happening on…Earth (the walled community has a name, I'm sure, but I saw the movie less than an hour ago and it's already left me, so there.) People disappear, and there are…shit, this movie is so boring I can't even remember what the problems are. It's mainly that life is perfect…too perfect. Luckily, there's a band of rebels, among whom we find Aeon Flux, who is awesome and tough and deadly, and should just be left alone to fight random guards and thugs.

Aeon Flux started out as a series of shorts on Liquid Television, which I watched faithfully. Aeon was silent but vicious, and usually ended up brutally killed at the end of each segment. She's played here by Charlize Theron, who proves that there's nothing more flattering to an actor than being offered a chance to play a super hero. Cause why else? It's gotta be that someone thinks she'd make a hearty ass-kicker (she does) or that she'll look good in tights (she does), because otherwise, wouldn't she go for, oh I don't know, a good script? No matter, Theron is good as Flux, I suppose, although she mostly does stunts, poses and wisecracks. The problem is that the makers of Aeon Flux have sought to fill it with depth, where truly none is required. There's a reason the Terminator doesn't cry. Aeon's mission isn't just mayhem, she's also out to save the memories and loves of her family and to rediscover her past and save the future of society and blah blah. Can't she just kick some more ass? For me?

Theron is surrounded by good actors in silly parts. Sophie Okenedo plays Aeon's sidekick, a rebel with four hands and no feet; Pete Postlethwaite plays who knows what there in the big collar; and Frances McDormand officially has something ridiculous on her resume as Aeon's boss who lives in her brain and wears a big shitty wig.

Movies set in the future don't always make sense, and that's the point; the characters are often supposed to be even more confused than we are. But if Aeon Flux is going to be convoluted and lofty with its future wars, then it better not cloud things any with shaky moralizing, and it better not have confusingly similar sets and careless use of green screen, and it definitely better not be poorly edited to the point of unintentional laughter. It does all of those things, unfortunately, on top of being a colossal bore. Charlize does have this cool black microscope eye, though, and she does one hell of a spider crawl.

Minority Report has a lot in common with Aeon Flux. It's set in the future, the hero's on the run after crooked officials who are manipulating thoughts, there's dead family in his past, and there's much in the way of cool weapons and ass-kicking. But Minority Report is endlessly inventive and exciting, and the emotional stuff pays off because we actually get the back-story on the screen. Aeon Flux is full of characters talking about stuff that happened before the movie started. I guess it helps that Steven Speilberg directed Minority Report, and that Tom Cruise gives his most focused, neurotic and energetic performance. Sure, some of the thrills come from stuff like Hey! They have jet packs!, but there are truly riveting sequences as well, such as Cruise's trip for a new pair of eyes, and an escape from a mall with a “Pre-Cog” played by Samantha Morton. I think Minority Report is vastly underrated. There's so much going on, and so much of it works, right up until the murder mystery reveal at the end. The acting's great, and the visuals are unmatched by anything in the recent Matrix or Star Wars trilogies (yeah, I said it.) Add to that freeways right out of my nightmares, tiny spider robots and a runaway eyeball, and the future doesn't seem so bad after all.

Aeon Flux: D+
Minority Report: A