Aeon Flux : 3 of 5

I can still remember seeing the original animated Aeon Flux shorts on MTV's Liquid Television and being amazed at their interesting look, awesome action, and futuristic weirdness. I was kind of surprised when I heard Aeon Flux was being made into a live action movie, and even though I was interested I somehow missed it at the theater (or was driven away by bad reviews), but I'm glad I rented the DVD to help satisfy my recent thirst for sci-fi action. Although this isn't a fantastic movie, I'm still impressed by the story they came up with given the source material! The world of Aeon Flux is a future where 99% of the world has been wiped out by a virus, and the remaining survivors live in an utopian city under a somewhat mysterious and strict government, which is opposed by a group of rebels, including Aeon Flux herself. The visual design is really interesting, including lots of organic elements with futuristic yet elegant simplicity, and I loved how they incorporated iconic scenes directly from the animation (I was pretty shocked to see the fly caught in the eyelash, but I guess that was absolutely essential!). Aeon's costume obviously couldn't be as skimpy as it is in the cartoon, but her various outfits still had the same sexy feel, which looked great on Charlize Theron. Although I liked the plot well enough and the action sequences are certainly OK, they just didn't have the style of an artistic martial arts film, and I think that look would have made Aeon Flux a much better movie. But it was still a cool DVD experience with some nice bonus documentaries on the DVD, and now I'm definitely interested in watching the original animation again!