Went with Stu and Tif to see Aeon Flux this weekend.

Now, I’m a fan of the cartoon. I admit I came in thinking (hoping) that they’d stay faithful to it and reproduce the coolness (and oddness) that the cartoon renders.

I was disappointed.

It’s not that Charlize Theron did a bad job - she didn’t. She was pretty good as Aeon. It wasn’t that the premise was bad - it wasn’t. They came up with a reasonable plot with respect to the cartoon. It wasn’t even bad effects - they worked in the cool gadgets and some of the more odd things the cartoon had to offer tech-wise.

It’s just that… well, it’s like they said when they were making the thing, “Hey, we can be 100% faithful to the cartoon with this movie, except where we can’t be totally faithful. Then… aw, fuck it. Half-ass the thing and call it a day.”

The cartoon felt rich and intriguing. The movie felt sort of hollow. I didn’t feel for any of the characters. I didn’t get to like them. I didn’t care why they were doing what they were doing. It very much felt like it was just going through the motions.

If you see it, do it on a rental. I might even wait until it’s off the new release wall at the video store and pay your buck. You’d do better, though, to pick up the cartoon and watch Aeon in her full glory and pretend the live action version just never happened.