All-star cast in dazzlingly slick space oddity
VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (Cert 12A; 137mins)
VALERIAN And The City Of A Thousand Planets is reportedly the most expensive French film ever made at a cost of $180million (£136million). You can certainly see where they spent the money.
This lavish science-fiction adventure is an eye-popping spectacle, constantly grabbing your attention with its gaudy colours, multiple worlds, elaborate spaceships and icky alien creatures. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the story, characters and dialogue are all a bit dull.
Valerian has been a labour of love for director Luc Besson and is based on a French comic book series that ran very successfully from 1967 until 2010. It is even said to have influenced the original Star Wars.
But now it seems to be borrowing generously from every other space-age hit from Star Wars to Avatar, Blade Runner to Guardians Of The Galaxy. It may buzz with energy and unspool at a breathless pace but originality is not one of its strengths.
Set in the 28th century, Valerian imagines a galaxy where everyone lives in perfect harmony. Alpha is a collection of different worlds originally attached to the International Space Station and now floating in space as an entity in its own right. One of the best sequences in the film is a fast-moving opening stretch, set to the song Space Oddity, and detailing just how Alpha became this giant megalopolis in the sky.
Lieutenant Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are the enforcers of law and order in this brave new world.
They spend way too much time exchanging supposedly witty banter and flirting with the possibility of marriage but it is more annoying than endearing.
DeHaan lacks the swashbuckling charisma of a Harrison Ford or a Channing Tatum and the absence of any real chemistry between him and Delevingne is one of the film’s biggest drawbacks.
The duo rush into action when commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) is kidnapped by a strange alien race.
Their rescue mission leads to revelations about Alpha and a variety of close encounters with some rum characters, especially when Valerian ventures into an intergalactic red-light district and meets Jolly The Pimp (Ethan Hawke) and shape-shifting dancer Bubble, played rather well by pop sensation Rihanna. An eclectic cast also includes Blade Runner veteran Rutger Hauer and jazz giant Herbie Hancock. There is plenty going on in Valerian but it feels rushed and never finds time to stop and savour the visual marvels created by Besson and his production team. There is none of the awe you felt at the first glimpse of Avatar, for example.
Instead there is just a juvenile comic strip adventure that keeps its foot on the accelerator and hopes that you can forgive the lack of real substance beneath the razzle-dazzle swagger of its surface allure.
THE GHOUL (Cert 15; 83mins)
THE Ghoul does a pretty good job of messing with your mind.
This atmospheric, low-budget British production starts off as a deceptively banal thriller in which police detective Chris (Tom Meeten) investigates a double murder for which there is no logical explanation.
He subsequently goes undercover as a patient with psychiatrist Fisher (Niamh Cusack) who may provide a connection to the case. Then the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur with a plot that twists back on itself, showing you the same events with the benefit of hindsight.
Director Gareth Tunley sustains a sense of mystery, nudging you off balance and making you wonder what you believe. It may not withstand close scrutiny but The Ghoul provides a workout for the little grey cells and suggests Tunley is a filmmaker to watch.
CARDBOARD GANGSTERS (Cert 18; 92mins)
THERE is a grim inevitability to the sickening violence and death at the heart of Cardboard Gangsters, an Irish thriller that mimics the energetic swagger of a Martin Scorsese classic.
Darndale in Dublin is a lawless frontier where only the toughest survive. Jason (John Connors) is barely getting by when he decides to muscle in on some of the area’s biggest drug dealers. It is a plan that seems destined to end badly.
Connors’ compelling performance creates a degree of sympathy for Jason but the film seems a little too fond of his brutality and casual misogyny.
ENGLAND IS MINE (Cert 15; 94mins)
ENGLAND Is Mine is probably not the film that Morrissey fans hoped for.
This is the story of the anguished teenage years of Mancunian Steven Morrissey (Jack Lowden) before guitarist Johnny Marr (Laurie Kynaston) and fame and fortune came knocking on his door.
Fans may also be disappointed by the absence of any of The Smiths’ music.
Instead we experience Morrissey’s awkward adolescence spent alone and miserable in his bedroom or hovering on the sidelines of life feeling superior to everyone around him.
It is a suitably grey and gloomy portrait of the artist as a young man with an eclectic soundtrack and a plucky central performance from Dunkirk’s Jack Lowden.
THE EMOJI MOVIE: EXPRESS YOURSELF (Cert U; 86mins)
EMOJIS might as well be hieroglyphics as far as some of us are concerned. And animated feature The Emoji Movie is so charmless that it does nothing to endear the little symbols to us.
Gene (voiced by T J Miller) lives in Textopolis, a city inside a schoolboy’s smartphone where all the emojis live.
Facing the threat of being deleted, Gene and friend Hi-5 (an irritating James Corden) go on the run seeking the help of a mysterious hacker.
Their adventures require trips through Candy Crush and Just Dance that feel more like cynical marketing ploys than a storyline. Sad faces all around.