Movie Reviewed: Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

Director: Luc Besson

Date: 7 June 2018

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

Luc Besson has built-up enormous good will with me because of the 1997 classic sci-fi adventure The Fifth Element, which is part of the architecture of my college years with its kaleidoscopically colorful alien worlds, marvelous Gary Oldman villainy, and its action sequences set to a marvelous Eric Serra score.  Without knowing the source material of Valerian (a comic book, apparently), I was drawn into the trailer of this film and then promptly forgot about it.  Now, as I catch up on missed films from the past year, I spent time with Besson's mouthful of a title Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, and I enjoyed it for the most part, despite its flaws.

First of all, it should be called Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline and The City of a Thousand Planets, but that's probably an ever bigger challenge for the poster, but the duo are the center of this rollicking adventure film that has lots of the elements needed but maybe just not in the right sequence.  The titular role is played by Dane DeHaan in a flat, Keanu Reeves-ish monotone that never seemed to sit right with me.  Cara Delevingne plays Laureline, a bit more fun though heavy on the scowling, and both are a couple of space officers sent on impossible missions throughout the galaxy.  After a most-fun opening sequence set to David Bowie's "Space Oddity," which establishes how the galaxies formed a gigantic super-station through peace, love, and handshakes, a conflict erupts on planet Mul, a beachy utopian of pearls containing endless energy and long, thin Naavi-type creatures who harvest the pearls and like in harmony with everything.  Valerian receives a mind-message from Mul which he cannot shake, and though they are tasked with a different mission, he keeps being haunted by his dream.  Or so he says.  

The film is an excuse for large, detailed set-pieces (think the police chasing LeeLoo and Korben in the taxi cab), that are really endlessly inventive.  One takes place in a desert world that features a sort of virtual reality market with loads of creatures and levels if you are wearing the right helmet and goggles.  A satisfying sequence with a great ending to the chase leads to a tongue-lashing by Defence Minister Herbie Hancock, who directs the duo to return to see Commander Filitt (Clive Owen) and protect the galaxy with the item retrieved.  A surprise attack leaves great vulnerability and confusion, and Valerian and Laureline try to figure out the labyrinth of lies and deception.

It is truly wonderful to see a big budget sci-fi film that is this weird.  Its moxie shines through in scenes with creatures galore, lots of purple-tinted shots of characters' helmets and heads, and its commitment to some slapstick silliness, particularly in a fight scene inside of a giant banquet hall.  Rhianna shows up all too briefly as a shape shifter for an indelible sequence before delivering a moralizing speech about sex trafficking. The film's major revelation involves white men in power being unable to apologize for decisions made that caused great harm, and Besson hammers home zero nuance in these flashback scenes, making everything a bit too easy.  There are a lot of shooting and explosions.  There are fun magnetic spheres that attach themselves to the first target one of them hits.  There's a nifty bug that you can use to cut yourself out of a cocoon if you find yourself embalmed.  There's that opening sequence where lots is suggested to the strands of Bowie's voice.  And those details will stick with me, much more that DeHaan's flat, uncharismatic performance, the feeling that the lead characters needed to be a bit older and more world-weary.  A fun time, but maybe not enough fun?