Aeon Flux (2005)

A disease swept the earth and killed 99% of the population.  Trevor Goodchild cured the disease, and the survivors now live within the walled city of Bregna.  It has been 410 years and the Goodchilds have ruled that entire time.  Among the populace are those who oppose Goodchild rule; they are the Monicans.  Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is a Monican agent who never fails.  She has been given the assignment to kill Trevor Goodchild (Martin Csokas).  When she stands before him with her gun aimed at his head, he calls her "Catherine."  Flashes of memory cause her to hesitate.  Then she is captured.  That Trevor refuses to have the assassin executed caused a political shakeup among the elites, especially his younger brother, Oren Goodchild (Jonny Lee Miller).  Aeon's hesitation marks her as unreliable and sets Monicans against her, notably her protege, Sithandra (Sophi Okonedo).

The movie is almost, but not entirely, unlike the TV show.  Both Aeon and Trevor have been watered down to puddles of mush.  Aeon is soft and emotional, uncertain what she is doing or where she is going.  Trevor is all good and entirely right on his positions.  This is not some tyrant who is doing it for the good of his people, whether they like it or not.  No, he is a truly good man, no ambiguities.  The dark sides of Trevor's personality from the TV show have been stripped from him and given to his newly-created brother, Oren.  Oren is the bad guy.  He's all bad, no redeeming qualities.

The big surprise is that the disease was never cured, they just came up with a workaround.  Humanity was sterile, unable to reproduce.  The Goodchilds reused DNA from those who died to reintroduce them into the population.  Of course, there was no way this could have been kept a secret for 400 years, but it was.  Also, Trevor and Oren were making clones of themselves and training them to be the same.  Gee, Trevor Goodchild has been ruler for 400 years and - looking at the statues, posters, and banners - looks exactly the same all that time.  The cloning bit should not come as a surprise to anyone, but it does.

The same year, The Island (2005), was released.  It also had clones.  A new clone was a blithering idiot but as time went on, they gained the knowledge and memories of the original.  That is what happened here as well.  Meh.

As a standalone film, it is mediocre.  As an adaptation of Aeon Flux, it is a disaster.  This is not Aeon Flux in look, in tone, in characters, or even in setting.  Creator Peter Chung was not involved in the making of the movie and viewed the result as a travesty.

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Aeon Flux

In a futuristic state, a woman slaughters soldiers with her automatic weapons.  Among the dead are those clearly suffering from some disease.  While the woman pauses to peruse a map and glance at a picture of her target, a scientist collects a strange bug that is presumed to be the source of the disease.  The soldiers having found her, the woman - now clearly an assassin on a mission - sprints through the building, leaving a stream of bodies in her wake.  She is unstoppable.  She arrives on a narrow ledge just outside the target's apartment.  However, when she glances within, she sees that the target is already dead though the scientist is present and undisturbed by the corpse.  What exactly the assassin planned next is unknown as she falls to her death.  While the scientist discovers a cure to the disease and receives great acclaim, the assassin appears in the afterlife to have her feet licked by some bizarre being; in her off time, she was a model for foot fetish magazines.

Thus ended the 12-minute pilot for Aeon Flux.  The entire story was told without dialogue, and the news reports were just gibberish that was self-explanatory based on the visuals.  The popularity of the show on MTV's Liquid Television led to a series.  Though creator Peter Chung had viewed the assassin's story as complete, the audience wanted more of her.  Though the name of the series was not meant to be her name, it became so.  Thus, Aeon Flux returned in 5 more adventures (5 minutes each), again without dialogue, where she died in every story.  Both the assassin - Aeon - and the scientist - Trevor - appear.  Sometimes they appear to be allies, but mostly they are rivals.  Still hugely popular, more and bigger episodes are ordered.

The third - and final - season had 10 episodes that were half an hour each.  Rather than a brief snippet of action concluding with Aeon's death, there are full stories where she mostly survives.  Aeon (voiced by Denise Poirier) and Trevor Goodchild (John Rafter Lee) switch between lovers and rivals.  He leads the totalitarian state of Bregna while she is a spy from the vaguely-defined state of Monica.  In one episode, we find that Trevor has mastered cloning and has a harem of Aeons; perhaps this explains her multiple deaths.  He is always tinkering with some new crazy technology or obsessed with some otherworldly being.  Regarding otherworldly, the setting does not appear to be Earth, even in some distant future.

Throughout the series, the setting is dystopian.  Mostly, Trevor seeks to build that which generally proves to be bad while Aeon strives to destroy it.  Overall, a terrific series.