Naval academy

Only a few months ago, Aeon Flux snuck into the multiplex featuring Charlize Theron as an expressionless fetish-clad über-killer kicking the collective asses of incompetent soldiers in a futuristic dystopian society held under the iron thumb of a fascist dictator. After coming out of Ultraviolet, I had to check the credits to see if the immortal Yogi Berra was listed as screenwriter, because as it goes, here it’s déjà vu all over again.

This time, it’s trash-action goddess Milla Jovovich getting her clothes spray-painted on before indulging in a ballet of ultra-violence with hordes of heavily armored drones who have absolutely no idea what to do after rushing our heroine … other than pause within striking range and die en masse.

Here we have pretty much the same movie, except that in the former, Aeon was a clone, and in the latter Violet is a hemophage (in a futuristic dystopian society held under the iron thumb of a fascist dictator, it’s against the rules to call a vampire a vampire). Other than that, same movie, worse effects. And oddly enough, no bloodsucking.

Directed by the guy who did the implausible but extremely entertaining Equilibrium (about some leather-clad guy kicking the collective asses of incompetent soldiers in a futuristic dystopian society held under the thumb of a fascist dictator), one gets the sneaking suspicion that he tried to save some money on the budget and hired the effects team from Tron (they were probably picked up for 30 bucks on eBay). While I’m not one of the knee-jerk anti-CGI brigade, this had some of the worst computer effects I’ve ever seen on the big screen … they made Sound of Thunder look like a Lucas film. And while Milla admittedly looks great with jet-black hair, most of her visual impact was lost by the loads of CGI foundation on her face … she was so washed out that at times you couldn’t even see her nose (I suppose this was deliberate on the filmmaker’s palette, to make it look like a comic book … but it just looked like a fanboy riff on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). Add to the mess a damned kid (why do they have to do that?), and a seriously disjointed narrative. On the plus side, when nothing was happening they kept the camera centered on Milla’s navel. Nothing happened enough to keep me from getting restless, ‘cause the fight scenes were pretty tired, also.

I have to wait another year for Resident Evil 3?

Sigh.