Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Dir: Luc Besson

        Cast: Dane Dehaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke

             

          Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the latest from acclaimed 

    French director Luc Besson ( The Fifth Element, Lucy ) and is based on the 

    comic of the same name. In this adaptation, Luc transports us to a futuristic world

    wild beyond our imagination. After a montage of explorers and aliens being 

    welcomed set to David Bowie's Space Oddity, we witness a Utopian like planet

    and their pale skinned inhabitants get wiped out. The magic pearls that they

    harvest help the remaining species survive.

     

     First off, the visuals are outstanding flooding the screen with eye popping CGI &

   nifty scifi gizmos. Some of the aliens depicted are very reminiscent of other alien 

   creatures such as the ones in Avatar and Star Wars. Unfortunately, the aliens here

   become a background noise to the thin and tiresome plot. 

      British actress/model Cara Delevingne is Agt Laureline alongside Dane

   Dehaan's Valerian as the pair play two young intergalactic agents who must 

   protect an alien species before it faces extinction. They go to identify the cause
   of a fatal radiation leak in a gigantic space station called Alpha before it's too
   late. 

     Pop star Rihanna shows up as a shapeshifting jelly like alien stripper named
   Bubbles whom Valerian befriends. Dane sounds weirdly like Keanu Reeves.

   Good: The visuals are stunning and rich if not completely mind warping. 
   The action scenes are energetic and fun and comes across as if watching 
   a video game but with more color. 

   Bad: Cara and Dane's characters are about as bland as a bowl of oatmeal. The
   two young actors shared absolute zero chemistry that made their romantic 
   subplot feel just forced. The fact that they looked more like teenagers suited
   for an MTV reality show made their roles hard to believe. The pacing teetered
   on the brink of boredom with its slow, drawn out exposition. The trio of alien
   platypuses were Jar Jar levels of annoying.
  
  Overall : The passion project for Besson was just average in its storytelling and
  lacked the kind of humor that made the Guardians of the Galaxy so good. Had this
  movie have more brevity it would've been a better film. Adapting a French comic
  to the big screen was a no easy task for Besson. Valerian is a crazy mess but a 
  fun mess in it's pure artistic vision.

Grade: C- (6/10)