Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

[Chaotic]

Originally Posted by Destinys Memory

Even after watching the entire movie I still have no clue what this movie is about.

Rihanna was entertaining, though.

Yep. I was totally lost too.

[TFordham]

To paraphrase my favorite review so far for this movie:

"The scale of Star Wars, populated solely by JarJar Binks."

I don't need to watch a turd, to know it's a turd.

[septimus]

Ha. Just got back from this and am relieved to see that I'm not the only one who had no clue what was happening. I'm not sure it even matters, though. There's so much inventive detail packed into every frame, that I was more than content just taking it all in without worrying too much about plot or character motivations. In some ways, it reminded me of Speed Racer in that they created this world where I truly never knew what the next shot was going to look like. It left me thinking how homogeneous the imagery in so many blockbusters is these days.

Only two other people were in my late afternoon 2D screening (3D wasn't offered here). Hope it somehow manages to do well enough for a sequel, because I'd love to see more. That said, it feels like they threw every visual idea they had onto the screen. There are so many crazy environments and character designs that are barely glimpsed for a second or two before we're on to the next location.

I saw this on an impulse with no expectations and knowing very little about it other than it was from Luc Besson (hadn't even seen the trailer). While this is far from a perfect movie, I'm now figuring out when I can get back to the theater to see it again (this time in 3D). That almost never happens for me, so clearly this movie did something right!

[The Great Owl]

Three stars (more like three and a half, I guess)

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a silly and pointless sci-fi movie. I enjoyed it, though, because it reminds me of all of the silly and pointless sci-fi movies that I grew up watching during the 1980s, namely Flash Gordon, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Last Starfighter, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Krull, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

Like all of those glorious 1980s films, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets has the flashy special effects that will already appear dated in another year or two, it has two attractive and serviceable leads (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) that lack Academy Award-worthy screen charisma, and it has a barely-explainable "McGuffin" that the good guys must protect from the villains. When it all comes together, the end result is a lot of fun. Cara Delevingne, who wins my vote for the most beautiful new 20-something actress in present-day cinema, is easy on the eyes, and her character makes some hilarious faces all through the movie. Rihanna, Herbie Hancock, and Rutger Hauer all lend some serious coolness points to the proceedings with their brief guest roles. Dane DeHaan is quite likable as the title character, and he succeeds in a cool role that is 180 degrees different than his turn in A Cure for Wellness, which was released earlier this year.

The one thing about this movie that really sticks out in my mind, amid all of the computer-generated sensory overload, is how innocent the character interactions are compared to anything else in contemporary movies, even in the Disney films for children. Valerian (DeHann) and Laureline (Delevingne) are romantically involved, but their onscreen pairing seems almost like a brother-sister relationship, where they clown around and bounce off of each other's annoyances. The good-natured carefree approach to the story, which is quite unlike most of the other stories directed by Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, Léon: The Professional, Lucy), is quite refreshing to my jaded self. Of all of Besson's works, this one shares the most common ground with The Fifth Element.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is not the best movie of the summer, and, in fact, it's not even the best movie of this weekend. If you're looking for some good old-school sci-fi, however, then you could do a lot worse.

[P-Rock]

Originally Posted by Destinys Memory

Even after watching the entire movie I still have no clue what this movie is about.

Rihanna was entertaining, though.

Ah, so this is as confusing as Garm Wars: The Last Druid? Looks pretty, but makes no effin' sense whatsoever.

Too bad, I was hoping for another 5th Element.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by P-Rock

Too bad, I was hoping for another 5th Element.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is like The Fifth Element without the Chris Tucker annoyance factor.

[thepizzaguy]

Valerian was a pretty big disappointment. The first half was good but then it turned into an Avatar type, humans suck, kind of 'message' movie. Whether you are into todays protest culture or not, keep that crap out of entertainment. The only way THAT scene

[Show spoiler]with the peace loving aliens holding hands across from the 'evil' human soldiers

could have been more obvious about it would have been to put them in tie dye shirts

[acroyear2]

My favorite pull-quote (from the San Francisco Chronicle)...

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a movie for science fiction fans who wish every minute of Star Wars was the Cantina scene.

[Blu Myers]

I REALLY HATED VALERIAN. Prove me wrong but Dehaan was sooooo miscast in this. He kills the movie (and I'm a fan of his). The fight choreography is lazy as hell. We have a plot that is so convoluted that it spends 15 minutes in the final act verbally explaining itself. The romance is forced, and even awkward (really...zero chemistry between the 2 leads). Cringe-worthy dialogue!

This film wants to capture the magic that The Fifth Element so effortlessly did, but fails in almost every department. We don't have a character with the charisma of Willis, or as enigmatic and intoxicating as Jovovich.

Visually, it is really nice to look at, and a 3D viewing is probably a must (which unfortunately I didn't have), but aside from that this is easily one of the worst of the year for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Karmasux96]

Was really rooting for this one because it looked like it could be really interesting, but almost nothing in it worked for me. Before I criticize it, I will say that the effects are gorgeous and there is quite a bit of imagination on display here. I'd even go so far as to say that there are 2 really, truly great scenes that are absolutely worth seeing (marketplace and Rihanna), but the rest is nonsense and I have no idea what Besson was thinking/why anybody signed on to this script/why it was financed so heavily.

It lost me from the opening shot with a confusing artistic choice of using "dated" 4:3 footage from what I think was supposed to be 2005 which then expanded to fill the screen (treated as though we were moving from 1970 to 2017), which lead into a pretty clunky montage, and then finally a scene in which an alien language is spoken without subtitles (a choice which I liked) until random words are subtitled because they apparently got cold feet and figured the audience wouldn't be able to understand?

From that point on I was confused and constantly dumbfounded, repeatedly cringing at dialogue and at one point couldn't keep from laughing at a "reveal" that is as blatant as a punch to the face. The two main characters were completely disinteresting, defined mostly by their will-they-won't-they schtick which fell flat because to me they had little-to-no chemistry. I guess they're apparently also a soldier and an ivy league graduate, but I only know that because it's explicitly said in the hamfisted dialogue, not because they uniquely possess either trait. Everyone's also incredibly stupid except for when they aren't supposed to be, sometimes even flip-flopping abilities (like being an expert pilot) when it's convenient. That or they just get incredibly lucky with conveniences that stretch the imagination further than the actual visuals on screen.

I'm also not sure which felt more flat, the emotion or the humor. There was not a peep from my audience until

[Show spoiler]the funny faces in the dress-up scene

about 75% of the way into the movie.

Sorry if you're reading this and enjoyed it, but every so often a movie comes along that just pisses me off. I really wish I could have enjoyed it, but I just couldn't find solid ground outside of those 2 scenes. 1.5/5 rounded to 2 for the poll.

[Chaotic]

I can't remember the last time I was this restless during a movie. I couldn't wait for it to end.

[dommie]

It is apparent to me that, in making this film, Luc Besson did not subscribe to that old adage that "less is more." This film literally has everything including the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure and it comes off as overly busy and ultimately just too boring. The film is visually impressive but that's it, period. The narrative is just not that interesting; the characters are thinly drawn and also uninteresting; the actors try but the performers are ultimately torpedoed by the moronic and just plain stupid dialogue. DeHann is completely miscast and all throughout the film, he sounds like he is doing an impression of Keanu Reeves. The Rhianna sequence was clever but in the end, there is nothing really here to make me ever want to sit through this overblown mess again. I will say one thing that I am probably in the minority about. For all the bashing about Cara Delevingne's presence in this film, I didn't find her all that bad. Mind you, it's not an Oscar worthy performance by any means. and it is the stupid dialogue more than her specific performance that helps sink this bloated vessel, but overall I wasn't that put off by her. In fact, other than the art direction and look of the film, I found her to be one of the few more entertaining elements in the film and there were very few indeed.

[Karmasux96]

Yeah she really wasn't bad, but Besson was more interested in sexing her up than he was in giving her any characterization.

[Jasonic]

Very rarely do I find movies disappointing when I had no anticipation to begin with, but alas that is the case with this because I absolutely loved the imagination on display here. It is big and ambitious. Luc Besson does throw everything at you, but unlike another recent kooky space opera in Jupiter Ascending, most of it actually works here. The problem is the characters and the dialogue to go along with them. While I'm both lukewarm on both DeHaan and Delevingne as actors, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say they were miscast. I don't know if their characters were true to the source material or not and I don't really care. They were both just so uninteresting and I just didn't care about them at all. Even from the first stills of the movie, I never liked their casting. It just felt so generic and boring to me having these two beautiful twenty looking something year olds. Now, other movies have done the same and succeeded with it, but these two just didn't look right from the beginning to lead a big grand space opera. Even despite the miscast actors, their characters were just boring and vapid. They don't necessarily need back story, but there has got to be more depth to them than simply a rocky relationship because a guy can't commit. The whole thing with the villain was very poorly done too, and can be seen from a mile away. Dialogue was often quite poor as well, but it's Luc Besson, so I didn't really expect much. So yeah, it's pretty disappointing given how great pretty much everything else is, but the core of the film is just not good to say the least. I'll probably be speaking blasphemy to many when I say this, but put the Guardians of the Galaxy in this movie as the leads instead, and it would be better than either film.
3/5

[GasmaskAvenger]

Fun movie, but it was pretty flawed.

The thing kinda ran out of steam in the last 25-30 minutes, but I still enjoyed what I got.

I actually dug DeHaan and Delevingne in their roles, despite what everyone else is saying. The film just needed a somewhat more swift plot and perhaps a little more insanity. Also...I thought I wouldn't say this, but I think the third act could've used Rihanna's presence....BIG TIME.

That said, I hope it receives a 4K UHD later down the road.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Jasonic

It just felt so generic and boring to me having these two beautiful twenty looking something year olds.

This argument I just never understand. I mean, if that's true (I'm not just directing this at you, but at all the other people who seem to make the same or similar arguments) then you must really dislike the casting of like 95% of movies.

Because "beautiful looking twenty something year-olds" describes the primary cast of a TON of movies.

And what's wrong with handsome and beautiful people who are young?

[Jasonic]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

This argument I just never understand. I mean, if that's true (I'm not just directing this at you, but at all the other people who seem to make the same or similar arguments) then you must really dislike the casting of like 95% of movies.

Because "beautiful looking twenty something year-olds" describes the primary cast of a TON of movies.

And what's wrong with handsome and beautiful people who are young?

Way to ignore my very next sentence.

Anyways, that sentence alone isn't enough to describe why they just felt off to me from the beginning. But as I said, they had a generic and boring feel to them, which not all young beautiful people have. It's just the particular pairing of these two together as the sole leads in this grand space opera felt bland. I felt that this particular world needed more of a ragtag scruffy group to make it interesting. Not every movie needs that.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Jasonic

Way to ignore my very next sentence.

Anyways, that sentence alone isn't enough to describe why they just felt off to me from the beginning. But as I said, they had a generic and boring feel to them, which not all young beautiful people have. It's just the particular pairing of these two together as the sole leads in this grand space opera felt bland. I felt that this particular world needed more of a ragtag scruffy group to make it interesting. Not every movie needs that.

I wasn't trying to criticize what you were saying really. I was just saying it's an argument I hear a good deal, and I just don't understand it.

Anyway, I haven't seen it obviously, thus I can't comment on their performances. All I have to go on is trailers and clips. But it really wasn't a criticism, just something that I see and don't understand.

[P-Rock]

Originally Posted by jim1174

This movie screams Avatar cash in i mean they even mention avatar in the commercial

Yeah, like the director is responsible for the commercials and ad campaign. Dude...

[Rodney-2187]

I've read several reviews claiming the plot was hard to follow. I didn't get that. I actually think the story is pretty straightforward.

I think the actors were great. Valerian isn't Star Lord and Laureline isn't Gamora and I'm glad they're not. Their chemistry isn't off. They're not trying to be like those characters. People are so used to those archetypes, when they see something different they think it's a miss.

This movie is absolutely gorgeous. This is what the filmmakers who made all of those old sci-fi movies wish they could have made but they didn't have the budget or technology. That same innovation and creativity is all over Valerian. My imagination was inspired throughout the whole movie.