Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: Movie Review
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Adapting the comic book series Valerian and Laureline into a feature film was sure to be a daunting challenge. But Director Luc Besson seemed more than up to a task. With a bevy of highly successful films like The Fifth Element and Lucy under his belt, a star-studded cast, and an operating budget of $180 million, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets seemed like a surefire success. Which leaves me with the question; how did a movie with this much potential go this bad?
Valerian tells us the story of space-cops Valerian and Laureline, who work for the United Human Federation, a government based out of a massive space station called Alpha — which was, at one time, the International Space Station, now bloated to gargantuan size by perpetual expansion and home to thousands of species. However, after being sent to retrieve a creature called a “Mül converter,” which has the ability to replicate whatever it eats, they discover that the facts of their mission don’t exactly line up, and start to wonder if there’s a darker conspiracy at work — one stretching to the highest levels in the United Human Federation.
To begin with, Valerian is a visually stunning film with some top-notch CGI, paired brilliantly with Besson’s amazing directing. Everything about this movie’s aesthetic screams peak science-fiction. The characters encounter a shapeshifting alien called Bubbles (played by none other than Rihanna), a bazaar that exists in multiple dimensions, and the space station Alpha itself, which contains environments ranging from deep-sea farms to dystopic cities. It’s the kind of universe that many fans of franchises like Mass Effect or Star Wars will know and love. The world-building that goes along with this is absolutely phenomenal. It’s the sort of thing that made me fall in love with science fiction — humans taking to the stars and locking arms with the different species around them.
Unfortunately, a world this beautiful is useless if you don’t have proper characters to put in it, and our two main characters are woefully disappointing. Dane DaHaan’s performance as the title character Valerian is especially poor, as he spends most of the movie sounding like a chain-smoking Keanu Reeves and generally acting like a pompous douche to everyone around him. I think that Besson was trying to make Valerian into a rough-but-loveable-rogue, but he seems to have forgotten that that requires the character to actually have likable qualities. DeHaan’s costar, Cara Delevingne, is moderately better, as she appears to at least be putting in an effort. She plays Valerian’s partner and love interest, Laureline, a fellow UHF cop. However, her character still suffers from crappy writing, which is not helped by the cringeworthy dialogue. The romance between the two is also poorly thought out. Like I said, Valerian is a total ass for the first hour and a half of this movie, only attempting to become likable in the last thirty minutes - yet Laureline sticks by him all the while, despite acting very aloof for most of the movie. While there were some attempts at creating a proper chemistry between the two, the shoddy acting and poor writing make it downright impossible.
Even if the main characters are a bust, though, I have to admit that many of the side-characters are great — probably because they’re played by actual actors. Clive Owen gives a great performance as Commander Filitt, and Rihanna positively steals the show with her character, Bubbles — an illegal immigrant and sex worker on Alpha. Honestly, she’s the single best part of this movie, and it’s almost worth watching for her performance alone. However, she’s only on screen for roughly fifteen minutes before making an unceremonious exit, leaving us stuck with Laureline and Valerian’s irritating romance for the next half an hour.
The plot has its moments, managing to be intriguing and gripping at times. At other times, however, it is beset by odd detours and even more crappy writing. Despite a whole world of unique and interesting characters, we are forced to watch the lives of the most unlikeable ones as they ignore the beautiful world that was created for them to walk through.
So despite some talented cast members and great world-building, Valerian is ultimately a poorly written and poorly acted film. The mediocre plot doesn’t help matters, only adding to the film’s substantial woes. However, the visuals and minor performances are amazing, and while they’re not enough to redeem this film, they’re enough to show us what a great movie this could have been. Perhaps that only makes the one we got even more disappointing.
2/5 starsr