Review of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) by Phil N — 20 Dec 2017

I confess that I came into this wanting to enjoy it far more than I did. It seemed that the conversations surrounding Valerian's colossal financial debacle masked most of the actual critical conversations people were having with the film.

And the truth is, the movie is far from a trainwreck, and it's undeserving of a lot of its critical wrath. Still, the admittedly gorgeous visuals can't mask a lot of the inherent flaws with the film.

The biggest weakness lies in its character work. Woefully miscast Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne can't fill out two central characters who don't really show much of a driving reason to do anything that they do. We're left to wonder why we're supposed to root for them from beginning to end, other than that the camera seems to put them front and center.

Even worse, some shoddy writing and poorly delivered lines make them actually unlikeable at times. They're actually selfish, arrogant, and only peppered with moments of actual sincerity (most of which is towards the end, and by then, the ship has sailed). There's literally a part in the film when Loraline (Delevingne) and Valerian (DeHaan) watch as their entire team is wiped out and murdered only to have Loraline crack a quip about her dress ripping.

The movie also moves far more slowly than I could have imagined, seemingly hoping its visuals carry it through some sequences that feel completely unnecessary. And I'm still not sure what to make of whatever the hell that was that Rihanna did.

Still, you've got to hand it to Besson in that very few others can create immersive worlds, or in the case, universes like he can. I just wish he had bothered to fill them with something or someone just as compelling.