Film Reviews

Valerian And The City Of a Thousand Planets (2017)

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Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke

Director: Luc Besson

Valerian (DeHaan) and Laureline (Delevingne) are special operatives and partners in space, who may just have feelings for each other too. But before they can figure out their relationship, they have to figure out how to stop the threat to Alpha, a huge metropolis in space, and potentially save the world.

Their adventures take them through many places and dangerous situations in a race against time. On the whole the film is largely episodic with situations arising one after the other in a effort to show off the design of the world, the creatures on it, or to put the characters in danger with very little recourse to plausibility or narrative sense. This is largely compacted by the complete lack of charisma and chemistry between the two leads, and also by the odd and incongruous character motivations. It’s a strange film and one that is largely pointless.

But where it does shine is in it’s effects and world creation, and perhaps if you’re someone who likes sci fi you’ll get a kick of of this film for that reason. The set pieces and action are all quite nice, and the scenes with Rihanna are interesting from a cinematic perspective, even if they really have no meaning. It’s a shame that a film from Luc Besson, who made Leon and The Fifth Element, has so little heart and is so wooden. The budget is clearly huge in this film, and yet none of it really works.

See It If: you really like science fiction and alien worlds, there’s not much else to this film and it’s generally dull and disappointing.

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17 thoughts on “Valerian And The City Of a Thousand Planets (2017)”

  1. A lot of people seem to think this film was mis-cast and I can understand that. I think The Fifth Element worked better because of the performances. But I did like it and though Cara was better in this than Suicide Squad. Highlights for me were Rhianna and the opening montage.

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  2. hello wildfiremovies its dennis the vizsla dog hay my dada sez that despite the terribul revyooz he stil plans to see this moovee probly in threed maybe all the threed speshul effekts wil distrakt him frum the lak of a plot and lak of kemistree and other things wot mayk it a terribul moovee!!! and noing my dada he is probly rite!!! ha ha ok bye

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  4. Good review. Have to agree with you about this movie. The visual effects were good and the alien designs / locales were great, but there was really nothing grand about this movie. The story was weak, the movie was way too long, and the characters were dull and flat.

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  8. Hmm when I saw the trailer for this film I was impressed by the way it looks. But other than that it seemed like a pretty bland films that really only drives on special effects. And I guess I was right. Great review nonetheless 😊

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