Valerian (2017)

[baumer]

Discuss

[Hiccup23]

Valerian and a City of A Thousand Planets Review

 

I went into the film with high expectations and I was not disappointed. Luc Besson is a brilliant filmmaker and you can tell he put everything he had into the film. I am gonna share the top 5 things I liked about the film and the three things I think held it back from being one of the best sci-fi films out there.

 

1. The special effects are truly amazing. The colors and detail really take your breath away especially in the beginning, the market scenes, and the shape-shifting sequences.

2. The first 30-45 minutes of the film are insanely fun and probably the best moments in a sci-fi film.

3. The score is beautiful and perfect.

4. Pacing. The film holds your attention throughout and there really isn't a lull time in the film (at least for me). It is a 2+ hour film but it goes by quickly in a good way.

5. The ending is suspenseful and you really find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat often in the film. This film wasn't predictable and I really enjoy that in a film. 

 

1. The acting was average. Nothing really amazing nor truly awful. I can see why critics dislike it. The Cara and Dane have good chemistry in some moments (action moments) but then no chemistry in others (dialogue heavy moments)

2. The 3D was raved about in the reviews (at least the ones I read) but I didn't find it impressive. See it in 3D or not, it won't make or break the film. Although....see this film on the biggest screen possible. 

3. Kind of fits in with #1, the dialogue is average. It kind of feels abrupt in some scenes and awkward. The blame is probably not the script but rather the lead actors. 

 

Rating: 4.5/5

 

 

[Morieris]

 

I enjoyed this so stinking much. I've never seen a Besson movie (not even Fifth Element). But this had the same effect on me Jupiter Ascending did - I love space, I dream of space, and this is the kind of life I dream of living.

 

On 7/20/2017 at 7:52 PM, Hiccup23 said:

The Cara and Dane have good chemistry in some moments (action moments) but then no chemistry in others (dialogue heavy moments)

Spoiler

The bit where Laureline is "This is why I can't love you because you're too damn logical," She's staring crosseyed at an angle and it's like "What? What are you feeling? Confusion?" 

 

There's a part where she looks at the little currency-pooping thing and goes. "I need to take you shopping with me." and it's such an emotionless delivery, I wonder how it made it in. Was everyone just tired of her messing up this line that they said 'Screw it!' and went home for the day and somehow it got in. However I do think Cara was better than Dane in the moments where they limped to actually emoting and expressing things. 

 

I know he's supposed to be an actor but this wasn't the right role. It's like Emily Blunt (whom I love) being the Snow Queen in Winter's War. These roles -  It just wasn't their strength. But maybe they weren't supposed to emote so that the viewer could put themselves in the role instead.

 

The visuals are amazing, this is the prettiest movie I have ever seen. After a while, you forget that it isn't real, you forget that the aliens aren't real.

 

The structure does feel like a graphic novel; I've not read Valerian and Laureline but I have read my share of Tintin comics and this reminded me of that kind of setup.

 

I think the narrative is simple, but it works. There's one thing I am a little confused about;

 

Spoiler

When Clive Owen was like "I committed genocide because if I didn't our economy would be in shambles!" did I miss something, how was that going to happen?

 

Spoiler

You could consider the bit where Valerian goes into the (amazingly costumed and designed) Pleasure Alley and that whole bit with Bubble to be a waste of time but I wholly enjoyed it. It was obviously set up to be "Hey look, he cares about her as more than a conquest" and while it doesn't convince me of that, it was fun to watch. I guess the romance was the one thing I found trite but then it's two people made in bland heaven so whatever.

 

Also I had forgotten about the weird Jewish stereotype aliens. We could have done without that.

 

The acting of the leads definitely hinders the enjoyment at some parts but everything and everyone else more than make up for it. B.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Morieris

[That One Girl]

There's a great reference to Taken in the first act of the movie that was fucking hilarious  

[BOOYAH SUCKAS]

Let me be upfront by saying that I think that Lucy is one of if not the worst movies ive ever seen and I thought the Fifth Element was rather weird but at least semi interesting. I have a hard time seeing the appeal in Luc Besson films, he has the ability to create great visual gags and interesting characters, but his overall storytelling and writing ability is lacking in several aspects. Valerian starts out rather strong with the space stations coming together but the film never comes close to reaching its full potential. The visuals are very gorgeous and its very easy to see where the budget went. Unfortunately the film is let down by the casting, Dane Dehaan was fine in most of the serious scenes but when he was attempting to come off as a charismatic macho man he fell completely flat. A role like that would be much better filled by someone like Luke Evans. Plus Dehaan looks like he's still going puberty even though he's well into his thirties, hard to take him seriously when he's supposed to be some highly trained special forces something wazoo. 

 

The story is too often sidetracked by meanders like Laureline putting a jellyfish on top of her head or Valerian going to a strip club with Rihanna. Dont even get me started on the part where the computers vomits exposition about the space station that serves utterly no purpose except to take up screentime.  The scenes are fun to watch but they serve no purpose in terms of advancing the plot and really just remind that there isnt much of a story to begin with. I mean a porcupine that shits diamonds? Thats your brilliant idea Luc Besson? This is what I find so frustating, theres such an interesting world and so many ideas that could be explored and instead it gets bogged down with something so random its hard to imagine how this film even got the confidence of investors in order to get greenlit. The whole "we serve a government that lied to us from the beginning" thing is starting to get really old at this point, Ghost in the Shell suffered from the same exact problem. 

 

Overall its not a bad film, there's a lot of really great stuff in here, but it gets crippled by the aformentioned problems. I think Luc Besson has a lot of similarities with George Lucas, both are great with big ideas, but left completely to their own devices they buy into their own hype and their films dont feel well rounded. 

I'll give it a C for the amazing visuals and some funny/interesting scenes 

 

[GrimFandango]

This was a very frustrating movie to watch, because there are so, so many cool things happening, so many awesome concepts, amazing creature-design--but if this movie was called Valium it would totally make sense because almost every, single actor seems like they were lightly drugged: their performances just lacked energy and were so wooden. Especially Cara and DeHaan, who had absolutely no chemistry. I didn't buy that relationship at all and the script and dialogue for those two made it worse. Man, that marriage/romance story line was handled so clumsily and was just awful. So much of the dialogue seemed like it was written by high schoolers and was so heavy in unnecessary exposition. Even the computer announcements were cringey exposition.

 

The first part of the movie up until Valerian and Cara come in was really amazing, and well done.

 

The originality of some of the scenes and ideas were just so damn clever:

• The alternate dimension market, and Valerian being partly in both dimensions and all that
• Remote-controlling the guard in the tower
• The three "pigeons" of information, and how the information is spread between them
• All the alien designs--just so amazing and amazingly rendered; jaw-dropping really
• The ship designs were really good
• The gloopy-cacoon guns
• Lauraline turning out to be a meal for the king--that was brilliant! When he squeezes the lemon-juice on her head I was like "WHAT??!!! She's the entree?!" The expression of the "cook" was dang funny too.

The blue alien race was stunning. Just stunning. The design, graphics and performance plus their paradise world were so deliciously good. I would have loved to have seen those characters as the main characters in the movie, I think.

 

A couple of secondary actors, especially that obese shopping husband were almost infomercial bad--he literally made me cringe how bad he was. What this movie lacked were actors as good as those in the fifth element. To me there were a lot of parallels in the character types. If the Fifth Element didn't exist and you plucked those actors out of time and put them in this movie, they could have propelled it to A+ amazing: imagine Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich in place of Dane and Cara--Valerian seems like a Corban-like character. Milla had the talent back then to do Cara's part much better, and they had a better chemistry. Gary Oldman and some of the rest of that cast were just a higher-caliber than what we got here--I can only imagine if they had been in this movie.

 

I have to think some reviewers are giving this a worse rating than it deserves because you come out of the theater angry in a way: it is obviously made with love, and Luc cares so very much about it, you can tell. But the stupendously amazing stuff is just pulled down by the negatives--you want to give this film both an A+ and a C-. Unfortunately that doesn't "average out" to a B in this case. I'd recommend it to my friends, but I would not be surprised if some just hate it. I have the feeling this movie will probably get crushed at the box office, but it really deserves better.

 

Thinking about it, I have to reiterate just how beautiful the main alien race/world are, and their little pets are just unbelievably cute.  The Rhianna part and character were very cool and looked amazing--her voice acting was pretty meh, but it fit with pretty much every other actor. Bubble was done really well.

 

The soundtrack (not just the score) was so uneven--some was quite good, but in most parts just seemed weak and poorly done. I couldn't put my finger exactly why, but virtually the whole time I was bothered by it and it felt like it was "TV movie" quality.

 

There was also something really off about the energy of the whole movie--I'm not sure if it was the pacing, dialogue, script, soundtrack or combination that just made it feel like I was watching a made-for-tv movie that had an astronomical graphics/idea budget and nothing left over for everything else. The audience I was with seemed to be in a weird state between high-interest and boredom.

 

I watched it in Real3D, but my god this thing is made for IMAX. I bet it broke Luc's heart to lose the IMAX theaters for this project.

 

This is one strange movie, because on the one hand I really want to see it again for the clever world ideas and graphics, but I just can't stand how disappointing the rest is, and it just makes the movie seem long and dull.

 

Not everyone felt about it like I did though--one dad walked out and said to his son that it was the best sci-fi-fantasy movie he'd ever seen in his life.

[IndustriousAngel]

8/10 A-

here's my imdb review:

 

The first thing you'll observe about Luc Besson's Valerian is how gorgeous it looks, how much work went into the perfect realisation of this world. In a time where nearly every blockbuster features tons of CGI, Valerian stands out and highlights how cheaply the effects are done in most of the other ones.

Next, the sheer inventiveness of designers, artists, set builders, wardrobe and makeup - again, makes us painfully realise how off-the-rack and dull most blockbusters are. Add to that Besson's quirky aesthetics and you're in a world that's nearly overpowering you with its inventiveness, its visual splendour, and also plain fun. I mean, a movie where a Jessica Rabbit cameo doesn't feel forced or out of place, that's just unique.

In my opinion, the optical fireworks were even a bit overdone, some scenes were plainly set up in a certain way to make them more spectacular but didn't really add to the story - an early on action sequence in a half-virtual market comes to mind that would work nearly equally well in a normal bazaar, just without some gags.

As to the story-line - lovers of the books (as I am) will recognise a lot of ingredients and species, and the main set-piece, a space city, is obviously taken from "L'Ambassadeurs des Ombres", but the story itself is a new one and revolves around a planet wiped out in a war about 30 years back, and the repercussions thereof. The "secret" someone wants to keep is not that secret to us, in fact about half an hour into the movie you already have a pretty good idea of what's going on, the joy comes from the detours we're taking on the road to the happy ending, not from silly plot twists.

Now, the characters, Valerian and Laureline: Dane DeHaan looks too young for his part from the comics (where Valerian was the more experienced partner, here he just has a higher degree), Cara Delevingne is perfectly cast, standing her ground with just the right amount of sarcasm and spunk. The team dynamics were as readers know it - Valerian the one who tends to stick to the rules and play by book while Laureline tends to act more impulsively - but both working together really well, be it as a duo or solo. There is a romance angle in the movie that was not taken from the books and feels a bit forced, thankfully it stays marginal and doesn't lessen the overall enjoyment.

And cheers to the screenwriters (Besson, mostly) for not going full in with the stakes. While there's some serious action here - people die and some more might die if V&L didn't succeed - it's actually a rather smallish plot, with just one single villain, and no worlds or even the universe to be saved, just the lives of some innocent bystanders.

Big recommendation for all fans of colourful SciFi and optical fireworks!

[IndustriousAngel]

4 hours ago, BOOYAH SUCKAS said:

The whole "we serve a government that lied to us from the beginning" thing is starting to get really old at this point

Are you sure we we're talking about the same movie here?

[IndustriousAngel]

9 hours ago, Morieris said:

 

I think the narrative is simple, but it works. There's one thing I am a little confused about;

 

  Hide contents

When Clive Owen was like "I committed genocide because if I didn't our economy would be in shambles!" did I miss something, how was that going to happen?

 

No, he already had done the deed. The economy mumbojumbo was his excuse for keeping his mouth shut and silencing his crew to cover the tracks, the reasoning going that if it became known, the humans would be expelled from Alpha. A bit far-fetched but as your criminal mind goes, we've seen plenty sillier motives in movies

[Morieris]

4 hours ago, BOOYAH SUCKAS said:

The scenes are fun to watch but they serve no purpose in terms of advancing the plot and really just remind that there isnt much of a story to begin with

In retrospect I really was "those scenes in the alley had nothing to do with the story." But I didn't care because, let's be honest with ourselves, we are not getting another one of these movies. I wish we were but we probably aren't. 

 

It was very cool to see but that time could have been used more efficiently. 

[BOOYAH SUCKAS]

3 hours ago, IndustriousAngel said:

Are you sure we we're talking about the same movie here?

Yes because they were lied to about the radiation zone. 

[IndustriousAngel]

34 minutes ago, BOOYAH SUCKAS said:

Yes because they were lied to about the radiation zone. 

Yep but not by any government. It was just one villain (which I thought was actually a nice idea, keeping it small)

[RobinHood26]

This was not good, the delviery of majority of the lines were just flat out bad and beats of the dialogue were poorly spaced/done. I thought the 3rd act was poorly paced and the intro was too long. The actions scenes were great in concept/imagination but lacked any investment and real sense of energy I felt. 

 

And I just hated the marriage shit. You cant just ask someone to be your wife in the MOST HALF ASSED way in history and then bring it up eery 90 seconds for 2 hours. Her answer should be NO, you fuck face, why don't you ask me for real and she'll give you an answer. Why does she love him so blindly, its like she has no idea she's pretty in anyway. Not to mention they make it seem as like he's slept with 1,000 woman and has never slept with her. They haven't even dated yet and he hasn't stopped dating other girls so why would she say yes to a not really proposal. If you have to say 4 times in the movie I was serous about what I said maybe didn't do it right the first time. 

 

I feel bad going this low, I have the upmost respect for filmmaking and the effort in trying to bring something of this scale to the screen, but nothing linked into place or meshed for me. 

 

 

C- (72)

 

[WrathOfHan]

Well, it's a Luc Besson film, for better and worse. The visuals and 3D are absolutely incredible, but the story just isn't there. Dane DeHaan is a terrible lead and drags down most of the scenes he's in. A more charismatic lead would have been much more fun to watch. Cara is pretty good, but the real stars of the film are Rihanna and Ethan Hawke. I was completely mesmerized as they were on screen, and it sucks they were only in a 15 minute stretch of the film. I can at least praise Valerian on its ambition. It's apparent that Luc Besson cares a lot about this film and put a lot of heart and soul into it, which is something we don't get often. His passion makes me want to bump my grade up, but I just can't with how flawed the story is. 7/10 | B-

[kaijukurt]

The creative action sequences and impressive eye candy were enough for me to let the dialouge slide by.

 

Plus the plot (not the dialogue, but the plot as a whole) was enough to keep me interested. 

 

3/4

[Barnack]

Well that is one good looking movie and such a shame that it does not work very much imo.

 

I think there is a clear list of element the movie failed at (and some scene seem to have been a challenge in the editing room and could have used a re-shoot)

Spoiler

1) The hero are described as extremely competent and valuable in a world that soldier dying around them seem to bother no one, but we never seem them being particularly good despite having a large intro made for this (Leon the professional of Besson did that extremely well in comparison), why are just 2 on a big ship, why are they extremely valuable that they cannot afford to loose both of them, we are told they are but we never believe it (at least not at the beginning). The casting make it really an up hill battle, one of the Chris type cast would have made it easier to sell.

 

2) At the very beginning they present them as despicable, unlikable, anti-heroes, much more than a movie like Suicide Squad. Because that Valerian is an hot head, soldier's helping them get killed, not only they do not care for those multiple death's of people that are risking there life for them and in trouble because of them, but you even have some : Oh I broke my nice dress comments. You think they would have an redemption arc about that, but no.

 

3) The city/space station, seem to be a core element of the franchise, but because there is so much story and plot it is just there, in background with a rushed presentation.

 

4) The creature is obviously one of the most precious possession in the universe, they way they carelessly act with it, leaving Laureline alone without escort with it, her bringing it everywhere, etc..., was ridiculous.

 

Those were core issue, but there was into scene issue too.

 

• The scene where they go into some UN council type and are locked in with Laureline still outside made no sense to me, she can get in easily but once in, they again cannot get out, etc...
• The complete final act with the bomb at the doors of the ship made no sense, why could they not just fly away exactly ? what made it possible for the ship to fly away when it did that was not there 2 minute before that, I could not follow the action at all.
• That love relationship was not fully clear to me

 

The first 30 minute or so are such a nice visual, but when it start to require for you to follow the story, it does seem like a suite of cool scene more than anything coherent.

 

[baumer]

I was kind of surprised with the movie.  Overall it was better than I thought it would be.  I found the first 30 minutes to be a bit off.  Maybe it's because it took me a while to get into it.  But the last hour was quite good and the last 20 minutes was terrific.  I enjoyed Delevegne but wasn't thrilled with DeHaan.  But he grew on me as well.  It's pretty action packed and it moves pretty quickly.  I'd definitely recommend it to be seen.

 

7/10

[GrimFandango]

1 hour ago, Stutterng baumer Denbrough said:

I was kind of surprised with the movie.  Overall it was better than I thought it would be.  I found the first 30 minutes to be a bit off.  Maybe it's because it took me a while to get into it.  But the last hour was quite good and the last 20 minutes was terrific.  I enjoyed Delevegne but wasn't thrilled with DeHaan.  But he grew on me as well.  It's pretty action packed and it moves pretty quickly.  I'd definitely recommend it to be seen.

 

7/10

 

baumer, you might try seeing it even a second time--for me it was even better for some reason; I think maybe by the end I understood what the characters were supposed to be and that helped when I watched it again. I'd still like to see some lines and scenes cut a little bit though. The second time I REALLY dug the opening, and I thought the soundtrack fit so much better. It's not a good sign that it takes a second viewing to 'get' the characters; I haven't read the comics but I get the feeling that maybe subconsciously Besson made the assumption that people were more familiar with the comic book characters than we are, so as an audience we really feel that they're both kind of self-centered jerks right off the bat because Besson doesn't set them up properly.

 

 

[IndustriousAngel]

4 hours ago, GrimFandango said:

I haven't read the comics but I get the feeling that maybe subconsciously Besson made the assumption that people were more familiar with the comic book characters than we are

I think you're up to something there ... but that put aside, the romance/marriage subplot was really silly bordering on grating and that was not taken from the books, I made the point of rereading the series and there was always an easy understanding and completely relaxed relationship between those two.

 

btw, it's true that it works better upon a second viewing

[Twelve]

Didn't like this at all. The two leads were just awful. Dane Dehaan was miscast and his horrid performance completely ruined the film and Cara Delevingne is just a shit actress. Most of the dialogue was cringey and awful and the romance between the two leads was just incredibly half-assed. The film was also way to fucking long. So many useless scenes could have been cut to streamline this mess. Overall it was pretty terrible but what do you expect from a shit director like Luc Bensson?

D-