So Valerian is the latest film from French director Luc Besson. It's set in one of those enormous science-fantasy worlds with many aliens, technology, and bright colors, similar to that of Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, or even Besson's 90s cult hit, The Fifth Element. We follow two government agents, Valerian and Laureline, as they try to solve a mystery in the heart of an intergalactic space station inhabited by hundreds of species and cultures.As you've probably heard already, Valerian looks great. I wouldn't say stunning, I never saw a shot and thought wow, I could frame that; Besson gives us a cool aesthetic but as directing angles and cinematography goes, nothing stood out for me. When I say it looks good, I mean the literal things on screen, the bright colors, the alien designs, the City of Alpha itself, all visually interesting. I could pause the film at any moment and look around to see interesting details that are there, just having a small snippet of extensively-thought out cultures and worlds.
Another thing that was great to see was some original sci-fi concepts I had never seen before. I haven't read the comic so obviously, I don't know how much was taken but there were ideas brought out in Valerian that I thought were really cool and engaging. One particular one that comes to mind is in the first act where our characters must visit a market, and the way they go about this fascinated me and the sorts of things they were doing I really loved watching.
Valerian is played by Dane DeHaan and Laureline is played by Cara Delevingene. I have to say that Cara's performance was the strongest out of the two, she seemed like a real person in this world and I enjoyed her onscreen. Now Dane Dehaan, who's acting I really like and have enjoyed his weird, villainess characters in both Chronicle and The Amazing Spider-Man 2; but here, he tries to be some sort of charismatic, best-agent-in-the-company, womanizer and it really doesn't work. It's like getting Michael Cera as James Bond; so as much as I love DeHaan, I feel he was incredibly miss-cast in this. He and Cara had pretty much no chemistry what-so-ever. The rest of the cast were fine and serviceable but nothing outstanding on an acting front. Rihanna was in it however and she did just fine, I've never had complaints about Rihanna's acting and her character itself was really interesting in terms of her abilities but the personality bordered on annoying sometimes for me.
Now as for the story itself, unfortunately, Valerian's narrative is all over the place. I mean, there is a story, you can follow the basic plot I mentioned at the beginning but there are so many tangents and entire scenes and sequences where I'm just thinking, why is this here? Lines of dialogue that make no sense and in the end when you really think about the end result, it was hardly anything major for the Universe or the City of Alpha itself. The premise had us believe our two agents would stop a world-destroying threat and they would have to save the Galaxy but it turns out it was like watching an unused script for a Star Trek episode; you know, entertaining enough, but nothing consequential.
In the end, for me, the high-concept visuals don't quite make up for the all-over-the-place narrative and uninspiring plot.
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