Movies - Æon Flux

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Æon Flux (film)

	Movies - Æon Flux

Æon Flux is a science fiction film produced by Paramount Pictures. It was released on December 2 2005. The film is a loose adaptation of the animated science fiction television series Æon Flux, which was created by animator Peter Chung (who had a minor role in this film version of his work). The film stars Charlize Theron as the title character.

During the shooting, Theron suffered a serious neck injury while performing a back handspring. She was hospitalized in Berlin for five days and it took about six weeks of physiotherapy to recover. As a result the production was delayed for a month.

Plot summary

The film is set 400 years in the future, when a virus has wiped out 99 percent of the Earth's population with the survivors inhabiting a walled, protected city-state named Bregna which is ruled by a congress of scientists. The story centers on Æon Flux, the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion led by The Handler. When Æon is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas), she uncovers a secret coup and answers about the past and future of Bregna's inhabitants which leads her to doubt her mission.

The film incorporates numerous elements from episodes of the TV series, most notably the episode "A Last Time For Everything", as well as from Æon Flux: the Herodotus File, a graphic novel that was based upon the series.

Production

The screenplay was written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (writers of teen drama-romance Crazy/Beautiful
and action-comedy The Tuxedo
), and directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight
). The character of Æon Flux was played by Oscar-winner Charlize Theron.

In the early stages of production, actress Michelle Rodriguez was considered for the part of Æon. This was perhaps due to her previous partnership with director Kusama in Girlfight.

Filming was temporarily suspended during September 2004 while Theron recovered from a neck injury she suffered during stuntwork on the tenth day of shooting.

Criticism

Paramount Pictures chose not to allow critics to review this film until 2 hours before it opened. This move, which made it impossible for critics to include reviews in the next day's paper, made some critics expect a bad film. While the vast majority of reviews were negative, some critics were surprised to change their prior assumptions.

The film took in only $13.1 million (US) in its opening weekend.

Reception to some aspects of the film appears to vary depending on how well (if at all) the critic is familiar with the TV series. A number of critics, for example, cast scorn on the character of Sithandra who is shown to be a woman who has replaced her feet with a second set of hands, even though this character actually appeared in the original TV series.

A number of people have also criticized the marketing of this film, questioning the wisdom of releasing a cerebral science fiction action film during the holiday season (where light family-fare is the norm) with a minimum of promotion and sandwiched between two sure-fire box office dominators (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
).

Though in many early and post-release interviews, Peter Chung was cautiously optimistic or evasive in his opinion of the film, in the following month he publically criticized the movie in an interview. Phil Hays, one of the scriptwriters for the film, gave a response on the same website.

Comic book prequel

In late 2005, Dark Horse Comics published a four-issue comic book miniseries tying in with the movie. The storyline serves as a prequel to the film and is a mixture of Peter Chung's original TV series designs and characters combined with the setting and story elements of the movie. (There are some alterations: the comic book version of Æon only loosely resembles Theron, while her colleague Sithandra, played by a black actress in the film, is depicted as a caucasian in the comic book). The first issue sets up Æon Flux's mission for the miniseries: sabotage the Bregnan government's plan to destroy the forest outside of Bregna's walls. The last two issues of the miniseries were published after the film had been released, and by the time the final issue came out, the film had already ended its run in most areas. Dark Horse has not announced if any further Æon Flux-based comics will be published.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Æon Flux (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Æon Flux (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay