Review of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) by Freelittlebirds — 04 Dec 2017

This score is for the Blu-ray version without 3d. After reading the critic reviews which I'm beginning to realize can be totally wrong, I skipped the movie at the theaters and waited for it to come out on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, the US didn't get a 3d version and I had to watch it in 2d. Still this is a very interesting scifi movie and it does do a fine job of bringing to life a comic book. I loved the visuals and the story was fine by me. The most telling sign of all was that my son who had played soccer the whole day wanted to watch the whole thing even though he was exhausted:-).

Could it have been epic or better? Absolutely! The main issue I had was with the actors and particularly the main actor - this was not the right casting choice. He doesn't seem happy and he can't play smug either. Besson is a master at picking good actors for roles which is very surprising to see him fail in that regard here.

If you look at the Professional, Luc Besson brought us Natalie Portman, Jean Reno and Gary Oldman.

In the 5th Element or the Professional, he brought us Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Chris Tucker.

I think if he had picked better actors with better chemistry, this movie would have been much better.

Other than that, the movie was beautiful and fun to watch.