No doubt it’ll cure cancer, too

Uh, oh, now another wire service is saying that it’s not going to move a review of “Aeon Flux” before the movie opens. You know what that means. The film wasn’t shown to critics beforehand because the producers (distributors, too) didn’t have any faith in their own product. They figured they didn’t want the likes of Manohla Dargis having fun at their work of art’s expense.

There’s an alternate explanation, of course. The filmmakers (etc.) just didn’t want to bother with holding preview screenings. In some cases, the product isn’t going to be affected one way or the other by what critics have to say. Or so that’s the theory.

Funny thing, though. You usually see these same movies showing up in big-city newspapers (New York, L.A.) in the form of full-page ads. And all over a photo of, say, a black-leotarded Charlize Theron you have the scribblings of “critics” for publications or Web sites or broadcast stations that you’ve never heard of raving about the movie in question.

And sometime there are even some that you have heard of, such as Joel Siegel or Larry King or Gene Shalit (who once, many years ago, used to actually say things of substance). These guys are gushers, telling us that whatever film they’ve seen (in the case of King books, plays and anything else for sale) is the next coming of (choose one): Eisenstein, Hitchcock, Ford, Kurosawa, Spielberg.

Here’s a story (perhaps apocryphal) that I was told many years ago: A critic (it may have been Roger Ebert ) is trying to get into an L.A. preview screening of a big upcoming film. He isn’t having any luck. Just then, he sees a bunch of people being ushered in, and he asks, “Hey, who are they?” And the guy at the door says, “Them? Oh, they’re the opinion-makers.”

Opinion-makers. Right. Don’t be surprised to see someone calling “Aeon Flux” the greatest film since … uh, well, whatever the last film it was they were asked to “review.”

Below : The cartoon of “Aeon Flux” became an instant cult creation when it debuted on MTV in 1991.