Saw “Aeon Flux” yesterday
Posted By Kathleen David on December 12, 2005
Peter and I found the time to go see “Aeon Flux” yesterday. He hadn’t seen any of the cartoon and I had seen the first season on MTV oh so many years ago on Liquid TV. Mike Judge got his start on TV there with a short called “Bevis and Bûŧŧhëád” along with a lot of cool animated shorts. Anyone remember “Art School Girls of Doom?” “Stick figure Theater” was another favorite. “Aeon Flux” had always reminded me of the work of Moebus the French artist who I admire greatly. But I digress. The movie was not previewed for reviewers which is usually the signal of a great bomb to be unleashed in theaters across America. It was a good film. Both Peter and I could follow the plot. The cast made some of the absurd around them make sense and there were some solid performances. Most of the reviewers were left scratching their heads as to why it was not previewed for review since it was a fun science fiction film with impressive visuals that did the original material justice which is my review as well.
Caroline’s birthday balloon is going strong. I got her a Mylar balloon with Dora and Boots wishing her a happy Birthday on it in Spanish and English. She pulls it around behind her and makes sure it is hovering close to whatever she is doing. The birthday balloon from last year lasted for about a month. We have been playing with her castle and she has been telling me what everyone is doing. Baby Jaguar (from Go Diego Go) has had the run of the castle. He has been sleeping in the bed (We have to be quiet when she says he is sleeping) and eating the food (We have to make yummy noises when he is eating). If he gets stuck or falls down, Caroline makes me kiss his boo-boo and then goes on to play with him some more. The ponies have been involved too in some sort of pony dance that I am still trying to figure out but she does have the ponies matched to the same partner each time.
The cats were funny the other day. Caroline had been chasing them around the living room when they all ran into the dining room and Stalin tried to close the dining room door. I oblige the kitties and closed and locked the door so they could nap in peace which is what they promptly did. They know on some level that the dining room is their safe haven from Caroline when they don’t want to play anymore.
I am grateful for the expanding imagination of my daughter.
One of my reactions when I first saw the commercials for the movie was “how long until we see an Aeon Flux VS Elektra movie?”
Judging from the poor box office it looks like it’s following the Catwoman pattern of putting an Oscar winning actress into an action movie only to see it die.
I was hoping they would have used the plot conceit from the Liquid Television shorts where Aeon died in every episode…once about 5 seconds into it. And was back the next episode with no explanation. Clones? Alternate universes? Was there ever an explanation given?
Also liked the flick. Surprisingly faithful to the source material, appropriately Aeonesque twist, hot Charlize action. Yes, the script could have used a few more runs and the director could have made some better choices, but it was a perfectly satisfactory film — much better than Catwoman.
I have to wonder what marketing genius decided that releasing a cerebral science fiction action film during holiday season between two sure-fire box office dominators was even a remotely good idea. As a spring or early summer release, AEON FLUX really could have cleaned up.
One interesting idea — in the very unlikely event that a sequel gets made, they can take the original Aeon premise Bill mentions and just tell a completely new story without regard to continuity.
Oh, BTW, is anyone picking up the recently released Director’s Cut Collected Aeon Flux? It also includes a few Liquid Television bits (including I believe Art School Girls of Doom).
I need to read the last paragraph of this aloud to my cats — I’m sure they’re looking for a way to hide from Katherine at this point, as she’s almost made the transition from walking to running, and she’s having great fun chasing the cats. (She can climb onto our bed now, too, so they can’t rest there when we’re home…)
TWL