Charlize Theron occupies a rare space in Hollywood because not only is she widely recognized as one of the finest actresses of her generation, having won an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award for her transformative performance in Monster and scored further nominations from the same bodies for her work in North Country and Bombshell, but the 45 year-old is also regarded as one of cinema’s premiere action stars.
Not a lot of talents can pull off the jump between critically-acclaimed dramas and action-packed blockbusters, but Theron made it look easy in the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blonde, The Fate of the Furious and most recently, Netflix’s smash hit The Old Guard. You can fully understand why she was furious about being offered the role of Wonder Woman’s mother then when she could quite easily have played the title character herself.
That being said, not all of her entries in the action genre have been home runs, and one of her more forgotten efforts is set to land on Hulu next month, on September 1st. Aeon Flux had decent pedigree, with Theron headlining the 2005 live-action adaptation of the cult favorite animated series, and rising star Karyn Kusama behind the camera in what was her follow-up to breakout feature-length debut Girlfight.
However, the highly-stylized movie didn’t find much love with critics and holds a weak 9% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it didn’t fare much better with audiences, either, after earning just $52 million at the box office against a $65 million budget. Theron did the best she could with the material, but there were far too many issues in the story department to salvage Aeon Flux. It’ll be interesting to see, though, if her recent successes will result in the movie finding a new audience when it arrives on Hulu next month.
