Turning a beloved animated series into live action is always tricky. For every One Piece success, there’s something like the 2010 film version of Avatar: The Last Airbender, a complete calamity. But arguably, the adaptation process gets trickier with source material that edges into the transgressive. So, in 2005, when the 1990s dark, animated cyberpunk series Aeon Flux became a movie starring Charlize Theron, something strange happened. Instead of being a scandalous movie with edgy morals and an amoral, complex protagonist, the film delivered something much safer and tamer.
Is the 2005 Aeon Flux worth watching today? Yes and no. For fans of The Hunger Games or Divergent, this version of Aeon Flux will feel like a soft predecessor to those more popular soaptopias. But, for fans of the original, this version bore no resemblance to the eponymous heroine of the late-night MTV series that started in 1991.
