VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS
Directing: C
Acting: C-
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Special Effects: B+
Anyone who expects Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to be a match to the cult favorite The Fifth Element will be sorely disappointed. Luc Besson, who directed both films twenty years apart, clearly intended for Valerian to be basically The Sixth Element in spirit. But, we should have learned our lesson from his last piece of garbage, 2014's Lucy, which was as brainless as it thought it was compelling.
There's a similar problem with Valerian, which is as dull as it thinks it's clever. It's also way too long -- 137 minutes -- for a movie packed with lame attempts at humor that falls flat, and ineptly cast actors with zero chemistry or screen presence. And these flaws are consistent: the dialogue is not once even remotely funny, much as it tries; the actors are not in the least bit charming, their clear and confident conviction otherwise notwithstanding.
Where did Besson find these actors, anyway? The budget for this film was reportedly $117.2 million, but clearly none of that was spent on the cast -- although Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, and Rihanna all show up in supporting parts. Only Ethan Hawke seems to be having any fun, but none of that extends to the audience. In 31-year-old Dane DeHaan as "Major Valerian" and 24-year-old Cara Delevingne as "Sergeant Laureline," Besson seems to have found a low-rent version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a low-rent version of Emma Stone, respectively. To say they lack personality would be an insult to mannequins.
Strangely, even with several major players in bit parts -- Rutger Hauer, Herbie Hancock, even John Goodman as the voice of one of the CGI aliens -- Valerian still comes across overall as a low-rent Fifth Element. That earlier film was hardly a masterpiece, but it stood apart, succeeded on its own terms, and featured charismatic actors that elevated otherwise trite material. Valerian has no such saving graces.
Unless you want to count the special effects, maybe? A whole lot of this movie is indeed a feast for the eyes, arguably more so than any film Luc Besson has ever made. You could even argue he overdoes it, stuffing the frame with effect-laden set pieces in evident overcompensation for countless shortcomings. The thing is, nothing really makes up for a script that lands with a thud.
This isn't even "so bad it's good." It's just tedious, overlong, forgettable. Does the story even matter? Some critics have lauded the opening sequences, in which we see the evolution of the International Space Station over centuries into the future, until the international astronauts meeting each other become intergalactic, an optimistic view of our progression into an increasingly egalitarian future that moves into the extra-terrestrial. I found it to be a tad pretentious. Star Trek already examined such themes, did it fifty years ago, and did it better.
It's this space station, by the way, that becomes the "City of a Thousand Planets" of the subtitle, a place where representative populations come together to pool all the knowledge in the known universe. It's also where most of the story's action takes place, although it never becomes clear exactly why the endangered species of humanoids on which the plot hinges has to be gathered there.
A group of them kidnap a military commander from the Human Federation (Owen) while Valerian and Laureline have been sent to serve as bodyguards during some kind of negotiation, the details of which I can't remember, and which don't matter. What this movie wants you to know is that Valerian wants Laureline -- who is also his professional partner -- to marry him. It also wants you to care, to be invested in whether Laureline will ever accept his proposal, in the midst of all this fantastical action, including a fairly engaging set piece involving the movement into another dimension. This jumping between dimensions is what largely sets the story in motion, after which audience capacity for emotional investment drops dramatically.
You can guess whether the two leads wind up together in the end. The suspense is killing no one.
Valerian might have worked better with a different cast. It would certainly have worked better with a different script. As it is, we get forgettable dialogue phoned in by generic performers who disappear in derivative if well-rendered CGI scenery.
Dane DeHaan tries in vain to figure out how this movie will appeal to anyone.