Even though it’s gone down in the history books as one of the most derided and hated sci-fi action blockbusters ever committed to celluloid, there was widespread hope in the buildup to Æon Flux that it would actually be pretty good.
Being adapted from a cult favorite animated series that spawned a multimedia franchise gave it a built-in audience, director Karyn Kusama had been pegged as a filmmaker on the rise after the acclaim that greeted her debut feature Girlfight, and Charlize Theron was (and still is) regarded as one of Hollywood’s premiere ass-kickers.
Unfortunately, the results were dire, and that’s putting it lightly. Panned six feet under and then some by critics, Æon Flux could only muster an embarrassing 9% score on Rotten Tomatoes. To rub further salt into the wounds, it flopped hard at the box office by failing to recoup the estimated production costs of $60 million. Ouch.
Despite having such a terrible reputation, the diabolically tedious futuristic escapade has been finding a new audience on streaming, for reasons that can’t easily be explained or justified. As per FlixPatrol, Æon Flux has been riding a wave of momentum on the iTunes most-watched list, over 16 years after sinking without a trace.
Set 400 years into the future, Theron’s titular operative stumbles on a conspiracy while on an assassination mission, foregoing her target in an effort to find out the truth. Wasted potential in a nutshell, Æon Flux conspired to be a great deal less than the sum of its accomplished parts.