Review of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) by Tom B — 28 Aug 2017

It's been a long time coming, but Luc Besson's sci-fi passion piece has finally made it to the big screen. And from the reaction its received already, maybe it should have remained a dream. At least that way there would be a plausible excuse for all the ridiculousness. It's barely even worth dissecting the storyline for 2 reasons. 1: Because it's so all over the place that even attempting to do so will likely give you a headache. And 2: Because the dialogue, when it isn't composed of stilted proclamations on love, peace, unity and mankind being a total douche to everyone and everything, its constant exposition, spelling out everything in the minutest details. The problem with adapting complex source material is trying to compress all the story, all the character development and all the life into the length of a feature film. M. Night Shyamalan learned the hard way that such a task is nigh impossible, and it certainly hasn't been achieved here. I love Luc Besson, partly because he wrote and directed one of my favourite films of all time, Leon, but here the entire enterprise was too vast to be effectively portrayed in just over 2 hours. For example, during one of the many expositional speeches a character talks about several species and their role in society, but they are never mentioned again, barely seen again and their roles are in no way significant to the story. Ever heard of Chekov's Gun? The filmmakers certainly haven't.

It's certainly an ambitious film, as well as being eye-poppingly beautiful. Much like in Star Wars Episodes I-III and Jupiter Ascending, its seems those responsible were far more concerned with creating their worlds than giving them reasons to exist. It's got some great action scenes and a handful of memorable moments, but it never truly distinguishes itself. Too much of it is reminiscent of early Star Wars and, a lot of the time, Avatar. See it on the big screen for an incredible visual experience, but beware; the cinematic beauty is only skin deep.