Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was directed by Luc Besson and stars Dane Dehann as Major Valerian, the galaxies most decorated federal agent. It is the story of Valerian's attempt to protect Alpha (the city of a thousand planets) from an evil force threatening to destroy Alpha along side his partner, Sergeant Larueline, played by Cara Delevingne. Now, I was not very excited for this movie. I didn't think it looked that interesting, and to be honest going into the movie my expectations were pretty low. I sucked it up though and went to see Valerian, and I was pretty underwhelmed with what I saw. I thought Valerian was an okay movie for the most part but it definitely had more negatives than positives.
Let's take a look at what worked:
1. CGI- The CGI in this film was breathtaking. It looked beautiful and I was very impressed with what I was looking at. It was definitely a movie that pushes the limits of CGI and something most will have to start to compete with.
2. Exciting Scenes- Valerian did a good job at really creating a sense of excitement and adventure in a few scenes. I really enjoyed the action in this movie, in particular one scene in which Valerian is fighting with swords versus several different enemies. It was well fleshed out and choreographed. The only problem was, these scenes were few and far between.
3. The World- Alpha was a really cool place. It was so interesting to see and learn about. They have thousands of different species all living together and experiencing life as a community. I was really engaged in the world building and thought it had a lot to offer.
Let's take a look at what wasn't so great:
1. Casting- I am a firm believer that this movie was not nearly as good as it could've been, and a lot of that is due to poor casting choices. I think Dave Dehann is a good actor, he is just good at what he does. He didn't fit the role he was attempting to play. The character was supposed to be awesome, charismatic and great at everything he does. Dave wasn't able to capture or sell that to me. I didn't buy him as Valerian at all. He was definitely miss-cast. Cara Delevingne was also a sore thumb in this movie. I think Cara is a perfectly fine actress, but she is better suited for smaller indie movies like Paper Towns. She showed she isn't able to carry a strong presence in a big summer movie with Suicide Squad, and further cemented that in Valerian. Neither actor was able to sell any chemistry on screen or give really believable performances. That hurt this movie quite a bit.
2. Needless Subplots and Characters- This movie has a few weird subplots and some characters that do practically nothing to help out. There was one character who was in the movie for roughly 10-20 minutes and then they expected the audience to have an emotional response at their departure. It just didn't fit. That whole section could've been cut out. Also, there were moments throughout the movie that took a severe detour form the main plot. It was distracting and created a run time that was too long.
3. Story and Tone- This entire movie was tonally inconsistent. Throughout the run time of Valerian, there were jokes that didn't land, awkward emotional scenes and a strange love story. Nothing felt like it was truly connected by one thread. The film felt really disjointed and staggered. This often lead to a sense of boredom.
4. Exploration- The biggest disappointment for me was this movie's lack of exploration of the world. This was one of the biggest and most exciting worlds I have seen in a while, and they chose to do virtually nothing with the world. We get one scene in which Valerian goes through the different areas of the world. That was the most we got to see it. Also, the entire opening of this movie was about these different species and how they came together, yet we never see them interact again. There was so much to this world that just wasn't even touched yet. Entire dimensions and planets that we didn't even talk about.
Overall, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was really underwhelming to me. It had a lot of promise and some great things to capitalize on, but never did. Instead of exploring the world, having exciting action sequences and fun moments, the world focused on smaller subplots, awkward romances and minor characters. I think with the right story and correct casting there would've been it would've been an amazing movie.
There is a good movie hidden in Valerian, they just didn't try to pull it out. That's why I am going to give Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets a C-.
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