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In the early nineties, MTV aired an avant-garde animation set in a surreal future where two governments, Bregna and Monica, waged war against each other. Appearing first as a series of short episodes, the violent, seductive cartoon soon gained a sizable following, earning it ten half-hour episodes. One of the main drawing points was the show's visceral presentation and twisted plot lines. Episodes featured naval-implanted robotic mood inhibitors, angelic combinations of bird and man, and sexual encounters with extraterrestrial life forms. This shocking, organic cartoon was known as Aeon Flux. Unfortunately its run was short, and in its wake, as with all things even moderately popular, a full-length, live-action and utterly gut-wrenching film was produced.

Loosely based on characters and events from the cartoon series, Aeon Flux introduces us to a post-apocalyptic dystopian world where an incurable disease threatens to extinguish the human race forever. The scientific, dictatorial government of Bregna, led by Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas), maintains order through oppressive, militant methods, and promises the people a cure to the epidemic. Naturally, Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) fights on the side of the Monican rebels, terrorists that oppose Goodchild and his regime. Uninspired, emotionally ineffectual, and bordering on generic, Aeon Flux does its best to squash anything that was sensual and disturbing about its origins.

Although it's true that Aeon in the cartoon was sentimental at times, she also had the capacity to be a two-timing, conniving seductress. In the film, this Aeon is stripped of all of her ignoble qualities and left as a bleeding-heart freedom fighter with no depth. Likewise, in the original series, Trevor Goodchild was equally ambiguous. His intentions were always noble, but his methods for achieving his ends disregarded human life and left countless people maimed or worse. Again, in the film, this Trevor is nowhere to be seen. On the contrary, the Goodchild present is, if anything, a flat, dull character whose only purposes are that of providing a love interest for Aeon and to reveal hardly revelatory plot twists. Both characters made the cartoon the alluring, sexual and morally enlightening show that it was. In contrast, these two same characters, ravaged and simplified for mass audiences by the cool and hip executives at MTV Films, are what make the film Aeon Flux a boring, unoriginal slideshow of contrived dialogue and barely passable action sequences.

By replacing grit with glamour, the producers of this sorry excuse for film adaptation have created a 93-minute opportunity to yawn. While some may admire the flashy sets and the bland, futuristic costumes, others will find them, when compared to the cartoon, totally out of place and irksome. Fans of the series, upon viewing this lifeless corpse of a film, have scratched their heads and wondered where is the gore, the twisting flesh, the quivering tongues, the insanity and the philosophical undertones? Where is the cartoon I loved so much? To be blunt, it is dead. Or at least so badly burned and tortured as to look nothing like its original form, so emotionally destroyed as to act and speak like a completely different entity. The cartoon handled objectionable material in such a way that allowed even a pile of crap to hold some significant meaning. The movie, on the other hand, has no such qualities. A piece of crap is exactly that - a perfect metaphor, in fact, for this pathetic effort.

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