Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets cares as much about its plot as Luc Besson cares about film critics and that is to say not very much at all, but despite that being the case, what it does decide to focus on makes it feel constantly new in this era of safe superhero blockbusters. At the center of the film are intergalactic special agents Valerian and Laureline, who while being generic stock characters tend to drum up quite a chemistry. That’s most likely because they are played by Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevingne, who while in a vacuum may seem like wooden character actors, suddenly seem to gain charisma acting against each other. They seem so tailored to each other’s skill sets that both their efforts almost cutely start to grow on you. They seem perfect for each other which creates an energy the film needs, mainly because their relationship is what the film bothers to focus on. This is the focus so much so that most of the beats in the film are motivated by one of the pair getting in trouble and the other one saving them from whatever situation they have found themselves in as the plot revolves around them, only really doing anything at the beginning and the ending of the movie. This, to some, may be indicative of a flimsy story structure, but the film overcomes this and becomes more interesting than most blockbusters by becoming a much more intimate “day in the life” situation for two space cops. This does mean that if your focus is in the wrong place throughout the movie, i.e. on the plot, you might get less out of the proceedings. Again, Valerian doesn’t really care what you think about its plot, it just wants to show you some cool shit. Yes, there are blockbusters these days where the same could be said (TRANSFORMERS) where that can’t be used as an excuse, but Valerian is proficiently directed and consistently entertaining and creative, where a most of those are mind numbing and terrible. There is no problem with a big summer action movie just running along like it doesn’t mean anything, just having a bit of fun, as long as it is good, and since we’re dealing with Luc Besson, yep, it’s good. When the plot does decide to roll around at the beginning of Act 3, you start to notice what Besson is trying to say, which is a variety of allegories all of which hit incredibly hard. The third act is also of surprisingly small scale. The plot really only revolves around a few people, one who has orchestrated a small bug in the system causing there to be a problem. It is a bit underwhelming, but we’ve already seen such a beautiful, luscious world that it’s hard to hold those elements, most of which the movie doesn’t seem so concerned with, against the film. The rest is just too fun, cute, and insanely well directed, that ultimately the whole package adds up into an entertaining summer blockbuster. Valerian, despite any type of flaw built into the material, works mostly attributed to the great director, and the cast that is ready to make that material extremely entertaining. It’s a monumental work of brisk soap opera filmmaking, that shows you worlds beyond your imagination and gets by on a spectacular amount of charm, even if it’s a bit lacking in the plot department. I give Valerian an 8 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |