Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - Liked It

7/19/2017

Stars: Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevigne
Director: Luc Besson
Runtime: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Categories: Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure
Based on comic books

As I waited in line, particularly excited to be seeing this movie for free, they finally started to let us in the theater only after telling us that this movie would be in 3D. I almost started to freak out. I don’t do 3D movies. The following review may be tainted with the fact of the quality of the 3D and my ability to get motion sickness even when the room is not moving.

As the movie begins, we are shown the space station, known as Alpha, as it continues to grow and grow with all living life in the universe. Each one adding to the massive home and wanting to live in peace with all the other creatures to share their knowledge with one another. Almost immediately, we are taken to another planet where the inhabitants are living in peace and loving their world for what it is, beautiful and sustainable. Space ships and other debris start to fall from the sky and ultimately the entire planet is wiped out. Thus begins the story.

Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and his partner Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are two space agents. The film focuses around them fulfilling missions together, saving each other, and uncovering a cover-up some thirty years ago. For the most part, the storyline is good. There were a lot of parts that I just didn’t find that interesting and ultimately disgusting though the creativity of it all was astounding. The whole “other dimension” planet was cool in the beginning, and it was interesting to see all the different lifeforms on Alpha.

There were times that were funny, this film was actually funnier than I thought it would be. I thought the exchanger was super adorable. And for some reason, I felt really bad for the big monster in the beginning that was chasing them, did they really have to put that in the story? The whole theater probably heard me sigh “Awww.”

I don’t think I’ve been sold on DeHaan and Delevingne as the two main characters of this movie. Their characters were supposed to have some kind of bond I think, but I just didn’t see that being played out very well on screen. Perhaps it was just bad dialogue? Bubble was my favorite character by far. Good job to Rihanna, wish she had more screen time.

Back to the 3D. For the most part (this was the first movie I’ve seen in 3D by the way) it was good, all the people seemed to be floating off the screen. The scenes that involved space though, were not good. I felt crosseyed the entire time and everything was moving so quickly I couldn’t even see what was happening. For the majority of the movie, I felt like the 3D didn’t add anything and almost made it seem like it wasn’t even close to being real.

Overall, I felt like this film was thrilling and fun to watch. There were little things that popped up all over the place that made me feel like I was watching chaos. I’m pretty glad that majority of the movie took place on Alpha rather than in space because the effects just weren’t great. I’m still going to say “Liked It” though. I enjoyed myself, despite the fact that I had to watch it in 3D and all. It could have been a lot better. (3/5)

This picture reminds me of Stranger Things.