Review of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) by Exorio — 22 Nov 2017

Pretty imaginative alien world, but boring overall.

I'm a Fifth Element fan, and that movie was a lot of fun, with lots of charm, and tons of hilarious moments. Then this came up, with Luc Besson as the director I was really excited to watch it.

I never read the comic book, but as far as comic goes, European comics have really unique style and story. Probably because they didn't reach the mainstream audience much. And lots of french movies are great, so at least these facts get me higher hope for the movie.

But... the very bottom line is that I was wrong to expect Valerian as "spiritual successor" of Fifth Element. I'm guessing this is a very idealist project, sort of like James Cameron's Avatar.

Something that has been around Luc Besson's head for awhile, but the technology wasn't up to it back when he came up with the idea.

So the execution? The CG are wonderful, but that's pretty much all of it. Action sequences are not impactful, even Transformers Last Knight still did it better. No witty dialogue or hilarious/memorable moments such as when Ruby Rod interviewing Korben Dallas. The story is a jumbled mess too.

If you want to feast your eyes again after Avatar did it to you, this will satisfy your thirst at least partially.

But this ain't no Fift Element.