Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

It's a film filled with humor, charm, excitement and so many memorable images that many viewers will find themselves struggling to keep from blinking so as not to miss any of the eye-popping delights crammed into each overstuffed frame.

As a mogul, Besson doesn’t worry about pleasing his corporate masters. He and his visual effects supervisor, Scott Stokdyk, can expend all their energy on topping themselves and making each other laugh. The movie is like a wave that makes you want to yell, “Cowabunga!”

On a purely visual level, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets deserves mention among the most technically accomplished works of those three. But as a complete motion picture experience, it falls considerably short.

Seldom has such a glittering wagon been hitched to such dull stars.

Workshop the story, script-doctor the dialogue and recast the lovely leads with actors who generate a little actual sexual heat and Besson might have had another “Fifth Element,” a minor classic on his hands.

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a fantasy adventure that’s nowhere near as adventurous or fantastical as it should be.

At no point along the way does the film provide a reason to invest your interest in any of this.

One of the few really well done modern non-dystopian science fiction films based on the comics by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières. The film is visually stunning and full of surprising twists and turns. Above all, it is peppered with a lot of humor and great ideas. Every scene, every minute is a feast for the eyes and simply beautiful to look at! Above all, the performances of the protagonists convince with their simplicity and elegance. It is actually a well-crafted beautiful and dynamic love story of Major Valerian, skillfully played by Dane DeHaan and the lovely Sergeant Laureline played by the beautiful and gorgeous Cara Jocelyn Delevingne. The CGI's are in the upper area. The story is well thought out and masterfully executed on screen. Particularly noteworthy is the guest appearance of Rihanna, Rutger Hauer, one of the great actors of our time, who has unfortunately passed away and Ethan Hawke. Awesome! I've watched the movie 4 times and I'm always amazed at how well done it is! BRAVO LUC BESSON! BRAVO!

A film with a rather classic plot for its genre but well made in the development of the story and in the atmosphere and settings, which makes it a slightly above average film even if nothing sensational

Luc Besson delivers a spiritual successor to The Fifth Element that's equally colorful if not half as deep. Visually rich and mesmerizing on the surface, it easily outreaches Avatar as a sci-fi fan's wet dream; a slick, breathing conceptual powerhouse to rival the cover artwork on so many pulpy, classic paperbacks. The art direction is a smooth continuation of Besson's earlier work, too, drawing heavily from European design and comic book artwork to set a scene that feels at once futuristically familiar and unsettlingly exotic. Designs for the various species of alien life are similarly remarkable and unrestrained, as are the wildly different habitats that have developed to house them aboard one massive, utilitarian space station. The opening scene, set inside a cross-dimensional bazaar, is a wonderful mishmash of creative world building and original twists on action movie tropes. But then it gets to the meat of the plot and suddenly we're stuck with just another dopey laserbeam run-n-gun with a heavy, heavy emphasis on stale human characters and an over-reliance on CG. Forgive the constant comparisons, but it becomes The Fifth Element without Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman or the blue opera singer to connect with the audience. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, wooden and flat with next to no chemistry between them, simply don't compare and the picture flails aimlessly without a firm leading presence. Valerian has humor in small doses and artistic vision in large ones, but without an equal narrative jab to match its creative haymakers, it falls quite short.

Greetings from Lithuania. "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" (2017) is a big disappointment for me. I really wanted to like it, really, because this big budget mammoth is not another big budget Marvel flick. This should have been something fresh. Based on a interesting concept (very interesting one actually), given the acclaimed and kinda (sometimes) visionary director Luc Besson (the great "The Fifth Element" and masterpiece "Léon: The Professional") this should have been great. My oh my - "Valerian" is kinda of a train wreck. There were two big and only issues with the movie - but were so big, they kinda blew this movie apart. First the script. While the story itself was good and concept was great actually, the script was simply not to focused. It was all over the place. They should have focused on more linear narration. The second was Cara Delevingne. I'm not a hater, but you don't have to be a movie critic in order to see how stiff, wooden and simply everything opposing to acting this "actress" represents. How in the world this simple girl without any gifts (literally) could have gotten to where she is right now, is a mystery for me. Overall, "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" could and should have been something truly special, but it felt very flat. Simply boring, not focused script and some truly terrible acting ruined this movie - big time. Big disappointment.

While I can see how the graphics might appeal to some, the CGI was painfully apparent to me, even when it wasn't supposed to be. And the leads had zero chemistry when we were supposed to believe that they did. I think that the writer/director wanted them to be attractive, kind of making the viewer think of Han Solo and Princess Leia, but it simply didn't work at all. I didn't hate the movie, but it's not one I am eager to see again.