Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

This post was previously published on July 26th, 2017 at 12:40 am. It was inexplicably flagged for sensitive content on February, 12th, 2017. Why? I'm re-editing it to see if it will make it better.

One's a space cop and the other's a time-displaced peasant girl. Together, they fight cosmic crime. They're Valerian and Laureline, the eponymous stars of Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin's space opera comic book opus. Its trippy visual style has influenced other sci-fi works such as Star Wars and The Fifth Element, the latter of which had Mézières as a concept artist.

And now, the director of The Fifth Element, Luc Besson, brings the space-faring duo to the big screen for the first time in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It's a pity that it might be the only time given the way the box office is looking so far. A few story details are hard to follow, but its wackiness makes it a winner.

The film starts with the history of Alpha, the eponymous City of a Thousand Planets, as it grows from a humble Earth space station into a massive intergalactic colony. 400 years later, special agents Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) maintain peace in the universe for the Intergalactic Human Federation. Their latest mission is to go to an inter-dimensional mall called Big Market and confiscate a rare creature called a Mül Converter. These critters shed copies of what they eat.

After a narrow escape, the duo heads off to Alpha to deliver the Converter to Commander Filit (Clive Owen), who we find out too early isn't a nice man. He oversaw an earlier space battle which nuked Planet Mül, the Converter's home world, into oblivion. The survivors want their Converter back, so they crash a meeting and take the Commander captive. Our heroes, who don't know he's a creep yet, head into the heart of Alpha to rescue him. What starts off as a simple rescue mission ends with the revelation of a sinister conspiracy.

So, what about Besson's screenplay? It crams in a lot of intergalactic exposition that flies by pretty quickly. The worst offenders are the numerous aliens whose names you'll spend a while to learn. Our heroes' backstories are more comprehensible in comparison. The film also impedes its mystery plot by telegraphing its twists ahead of time. Its first scene is of Mül just before the end. Commander Filit spends an early scene torturing a Mül survivor. You can pretty much tell why they attacked the meeting. But their end game was a nice surprise.

Let's talk about the direction. The tone circles around from serious to cartoonish, though not in the same scene. The Mül apocalypse is tragic even without some initial context. Our heroes' escape from Big Market ends with their bestial pursuer falling back to earth like a Looney Toon. It at least knows what it wants to be when it wants to be. The silly scenes in particular were actually entertaining.

What about its characters, whether alien, human, digital or real? DeHaan is a capably smug Valerian, while Delevingne is a capably serious Laureline. Their chemistry isn't outstanding, but it gets the job done. The best character is the shapeshifting dancer alien Bubble (Rihanna), who is unfortunately taken out of the movie far too soon. Ethan Hawke and Alain Chabat provide one-scene comical wonders to the mix. Commander Filit makes for a brutal villain with almost sympathetic motivations.

The film's technical marvels are plentiful. The production, costume, makeup, and alien designs are just as elaborate as those in The Fifth Element. The CGI, cinematography by Thierry Arbogast and editing by Julien Rey complete the film's visual life. Alexandre Desplat's score and the sound design add the aural touch to the film's universe.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a delightfully weird space odyssey which is mildly hampered by its clunky exposition. It's a trip that's unlike a lot of summer films out there these days. But this deserves to be seen on the big screen first. Its 137 minutes will go by quick if you're in the right mood.