‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’
Directed by Luc Besson
Starring Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke
Rated PG-13
Writer/director Luc Besson’s “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is packed with odd concepts, visual spectacle and a healthy dose of crazy.
Based on a long-running French graphic novel series by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, “Valerian” stars Dane DeHaan as the title character, a roguish operative tasked with keeping order in the universe alongside his partner and love interest Laureline (Cara Delevingne).
The City of a Thousand Planets is a massive space station that has been growing and growing for hundreds of years, which you see happen in a clever montage that opens the film to the tune of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
In the 28th century, the station, Alpha, is a diverse hodgepodge of societies, a melting pot of alien life. When there is a problem in one of the core sections, Valerian and Laureline are tasked with resolving it.
But the story here is secondary to the visual experience and the colorful ideas exploding on the screen from start to finish.
That does lead to a meandering script with some unnecessary baggage, including an entire sequence in the middle featuring Ethan Hawke and Rihanna that seems to exist just to sell tickets.
The film is most akin to Besson’s other big sci-fi flick, “The Fifth Element,” which also took inspiration from French comics, though DeHaan can’t command the screen like Bruce Willis.
Delevingne, fresh off a pretty awful turn in “Suicide Squad,” fares better than him, coming off like a snarkier and sassier version of Emma Watson.
Problems aside, “Valerian” is just fun to watch, a visual experience perfect for the big screen.
It’s an old-school sci-fi romp thoughtfully created with all the modern techniques.
