Besson spectacular rarely touches heart
VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (12A, 137 mins)
ARMED with a reported budget of around $200m, charismatic filmmaker Luc Besson delivers a rip-roaring spectacle that assaults the eyes but seldom touches the heart.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets brazenly melds elements of Star Wars and Avatar to explore the destruction of otherworldly races in the 28th century.
It’s evident that this is the opening salvo of a potential franchise but it’s hard to see further adventures for these poorly sketched characters when on-screen chemistry between leads Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne is inert and plotting is so haphazard.
An eye-catching supporting role for pop star Rihanna as a shapeshifting pole dancer is a pleasing distraction but completely superfluous
The special effectsladen romp centres on gung-ho time-travelling agent Major Valerian (DeHaan) and his sassy partner, Sergeant Laureline (Delevingne).
The bickering lovebirds are enlisted to steal a rare creature known as a Converter, which can replicate anything it swallows, from the clutches of space pirate Igon Siruss (voiced by John Goodman).
The mission goes awry but Valerian and Laureline escape with the precious cargo and deliver the creature to Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) aboard the space station Alpha, where hundreds of alien races live in harmony.
The identity of the chief villain is hilariously evident but Besson and his scriptwriters insist on biding their time before the anticlimactic big reveal.