Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets | July 21, 2017 | FLOP OF THE YEAR

[DMan7]

Looks like my 45% RT has a good shot of happening. 

[JohnnyGossamer]

2 hours ago, Noctis said:

I still find DeHaan to be an unbelievably huge charisma vacuum. There's something about him that's just so unlikable. And he has a face you wanna punch.

Sigh. Yeah. Suits the role though. But, as I said, give the cast of Legion. Stevens and Plaza were better suited to this... Still, near perfect in the maddening fun department.

[JohnnyGossamer]

55 MC, 55 RT is my prediction.

[GrimFandango]

[Ok, I've seen it five times now--that must tell you something about how I feel. My neighbor offered to take me the second time, and I actually enjoyed it more, and that's why I'm changing my initial review]

 

Loved the aliens and the world building. Awesome graphics, a few funny bits. The plot was pretty good, but the dialogue was god-awful.

 

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 because 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. The originality of some of the scenes and ideas were just so damn clever though!

 

A couple secondary actors, and one in particular were almost infomercial bad.

 

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 B-. 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.

 

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 information trio were very well done, and that was again another fantastic new concept. 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.

 

The soundtrack (not just the score) was horrible. Actually, I've grown to like the score. Some places were a bit weak. 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. [after repeated viewing, it seems to matter a lot where you sit in the theater which makes me think maybe there's a mixing issue?  Close to the screen seems to sound best.]  I really like the musical piece during Rihanna's dance.  I like Bowie's song at the beginning because it fits so well. The score during the first Planet Mul part was perfect. I also like the music that played when we first see Valerian and Lauraline. And there is a piece right before the wearing of the jellyfish that works well.

 

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 of high-interest and boredom. [I've seen this five times now--some audiences REALLY get into it, some don't] [The movie works better for me the second viewing and after, and I think the reason might be that I understand the characters a bit more and am more sympathetic to them, so when I saw them again they didn't grate against me so much. I think a big problem is that out of the box they come off as self-centered jerks, more or less. Cara becomes more likable later on. Some editing could really change the tone of this movie, and in particular remove the negative vibe from the characters: cut out the scene right after they enter the ship from the holo-deck so that we miss the awkward exposition, and pick up where Lauraline is putting the energy-capsule in the ship. This would fundamentally shift their relationship into a better light by allowing us to believe a closer and longer relationship exists between the two, which allows Valerian's proposal to carry a sentimental vibe instead of the playboy vibe. Cut the little bit about Cara's dress getting ripped--it's one second that makes them seem to not care that their team had just gotten wiped out, and also cut their jokey-banter with the Hancock character for the same reason. Remove a lot of the ship's banter from the voice over, because it is often annoying and overdoes the exposition.

 

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.

Edited July 26, 2017 by GrimFandango

[AJG]

Holy Shit. When did the RT score plummet like that?

 

the audience score is horrible too. 67% on the first day. WOM is most certainly dead.

 

the movie is getting shitted on on Reddit. That place have been freaking out over this movie since the announcement.

Edited July 21, 2017 by AJG

[DeeCee]

Hopefully I'll be able to do a Valerian/Atomic Blonde double on August 13. 

[Mikasa Ackerman]

About a 100 pages back I said I was more excited for this than The Last Jedi.

 

I won't lie, that might not be true anymore. But still, Valerian feel so different from any modern blockbuster that I still wanna see it pretty bad. I just wish I didn't have to wait another 3 weeks.

 

[aabattery]

5 minutes ago, Mikasa Ackerman said:

About a 100 pages back I said I was more excited for this than The Last Jedi.

 

I won't lie, that might not be true anymore. But still, Valerian feel so different from any modern blockbuster that I still wanna see it pretty bad. I just wish I didn't have to wait another 3 weeks.

 

 

The tragedy of being in New Zealand. At least Baby Driver is finally out.

[Mikasa Ackerman]

1 minute ago, aabattery said:

 

The tragedy of being in New Zealand. At least Baby Driver is finally out.

 

Yep. Still, could be worse than 3 weeks. John Wick 2 was something like 3 months.

 

[aabattery]

Just now, Mikasa Ackerman said:

 

Yep. Still, could be worse than 3 weeks. John Wick 2 was something like 3 months.

 

 

That was awful. Fuck eOne. At least we can take solace in the fact that we get Ragnarok a week earlier than the Americans

[DeeCee]

1 hour ago, aabattery said:

 

That was awful. Fuck eOne. At least we can take solace in the fact that we get Ragnarok a week earlier than the Americans

And Infinity War on ANZAC Day. 

[Mikasa Ackerman]

1 hour ago, DeeCee said:

And Infinity War on ANZAC Day. 

 

Sweet, something to cheer me up after the Kiwis lose the ANZAC test.

 

[75Live]

9 hours ago, That One Guy said:

With this and Apes releasing on back to back weekends, I officially declare this summer to be back on track.  This movie blew me away.  I loved every second of it.  

 

A+

 

 

 

 

 

 

but glad you actually liked it   

[Ezen Baklattan]

@That One Guy liked The Circle more than most and now adored Valerian. STX/EuropaCorp shill? 

[That One Girl]

4 minutes ago, Spaghetti of 1000 Planets said:

@That One Guy liked The Circle more than most and now adored Valerian. STX/EuropaCorp shill? 

 

I still don't know why I liked The Circle actually

 

I objectively think it's bad but for some reason I enjoyed watching it.  Maybe it was cause it was my birthday and I was in a good mood?

[Ezen Baklattan]

I'm just busting your chops, haha.  THE CIRCLE was very poorly structured but was still somehow enjoyable for me at parts.

[Brainiac5]

On 7/19/2017 at 2:24 PM, MrGlass2 said:

 

Look at this buzz on Twitter: #2, breathing on Nolan's neck.

 

Valerian is soaring, leaving the haters behind.

 

 

 

I saw the film and to me it's no less than a 7.5

[TheMovieman]

So... right now this is looking at around $16-17M OW. I'll go under on that.

[dudalb]

21 minutes ago, TheMovieman said:

So... right now this is looking at around $16-17M OW. I'll go under on that.

Ouch, if true.

Besson and Eurocorps always expected this to make it's big bucks overseas,but they hoped it would do at least decently in the US.

It's not going to be the kind of modest success the Fifth Element was.

[Bastien]

22 minutes ago, dudalb said:

Ouch, if true.

Besson and Eurocorps always expected this to make it's big bucks overseas,but they hoped it would do at least decently in the US.

It's not going to be the kind of modest success the Fifth Element was.

I do not think Besson to recover this. It was too much for him.