Review of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) by Yukerayasha X — 09 Jan 2018

Overall, this movie was pretty much what I was expecting. It has some pretty decent visuals, and a neat idea, but is otherwise kind of a mess. It's definitely the type of thing that works better in something where you can keep the reader/viewer in the universe longer -- they tried to introduce so much, that nothing really mattered, or stuck around long enough to have a lasting impression.

The dialogue was super campy, which I'm generally ok with, but this one was more cringe-worthy than anything. For the entirety of the film, Valerian continues to make passes at Laureline, to the degree that it's just eye-rolling. It's meant to show that the characters have a past and know each other well, but instead sets them both up as shallow and immature. From basic "player" comments, to a poorly thought out proposal, and a laughably cliche explanation about how "love conquers all". It was just too much, I couldn't take either character seriously when they were together.

While fairly well done visually, all the fight scenes within the movie lacked weight. I mostly pin this down to audio, all the weapons sounded small and weak, the impacts didn't register, and the characters didn't really seem to be at home in those situations. It seemed more like they were playing a videogame from the safety of their home, and weren't physically there.

Overall, I wanted to like Valerian, and for a basic popcorn flick it's pretty good, but I think I would rather see an anime adaptation for this comic strip in the future. It failed to meet expectations required for a modern live action sci-fi franchise.