Aeon Flux

I have to say that the idea behind this movie is very interesting and awesome, but that is it. There is nothing else salvageable from the film.  It starts out with Aeon (Charlize Theron)  telling us the past. There was this disease that killed almost everyone on the planet. There were only a handful of survivors and they all live peacefully in a perfect city surrounded by a giant wall to keep them safe. The city is under the control of a corrupt government called the Goodchild Regime, ruled by Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) and his younger brother Oren (Jonny Lee Miller).

Aeon is part of the group of rebels called the Monicans who are trying to bring down the regime. After one mission involving Aeon spiderwalking up a building, her younger sister Una (Amelia Warner) is killed, thought to be a Monican. After that Aeon is overjoyed when she finally gets the mission to kill Trevor. Her and her partner Sithandra (Sophia Okonedo) who has hands for feet (......what?) break in and Aeon is about to kill Trevor when the two of them have a mutual connection and she can't do it and she is captured. After she escapes she uncovers Trevor's lab where he is  trying to find the cure for something that is plaguing the city. She also finds an old picture of herself.

She meets back up with Trevor who by this time has been declared an outlaw by Oren and Aeon has also been declared rogue by the Monicans, and he explains to her what is going on. Four hundred years ago he was part of the group of scientists that discovered the cure for the disease that ravaged all human kind. Unfortunately the cure made everybody sterile so he and his brother created this city and the technology to clone humans.  So every time someone dies their DNA is reintroduced into society with a suitable couple as parents. Una had been part of a test group that had actually become pregnant and was killed off by Oren.

Aeon is in fact Catherine, Trevor's wife who he thought was never reintroduced into society because her DNA was lost. At the pivotal scene at the end of the movie Oren confesses that he had Catherine's DNA destroyed (or so he thought.)  It also turns out that it wasn't Trevor's research, that women were getting pregnant on their own and Oren couldn't have that so he had these people 'disappear. Just as he is about to kill both Trevor and Aeon, she gets in contact with Sithandra and convinces her to help and they are able to defeat Oren and Aeon destroys the cloning facility and, at the same time, takes a big chunk out of the wall surrounding the city. 

As I said the concept is very interesting. The idea of cloning people over and over again without them knowing is very original. The people are all having dreams about their previous lives, and the only ones who know are the Goodchilds who clone themselves and teach their younger selves how to govern and what they must do to help. However that is as far as it goes. There are these 'technological advances' that are abundant throughout out the movie that have absolute no basis in reality what so ever. I mean why would you have hands for feet? What purpose do they serve? How is it that only Aeon has super human agility? If it is an advancement shouldn't the soldiers have this ability and not some random anarchists?

The acting is also way below par and lifeless and the actual plot is boring and doesn't make much sense. The guy in charge of the cloning process, called The Keeper (Pete Postlethwaite) knew her DNA would be important so he kept it even though Oren ordered it destroyed, but The Keeper only put it back into rotation now, so how is it that she is plagued by dreams like everyone else, if it only gets worse every passing generation. She's only had one! Not forty, or whatever.  And do not even get me started with my hatred of the costumes in this film. They are beyond ugly and why are the Monicans always wearing either black or white when everyone else has colour. Good job in not sticking out people.

Grade: 2.5/10