Review of ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’
At the age of 10, visionary French film director Luc Besson fell in love with the French-Belgian space opera comic “Valérian and Laureline” by writer Pierre Christin and artist JeanClaude Mézières. Chronicling the wild adventures of two sassy space cops, “Valérian and Laureline” is said to have influenced “Star Wars” and, of course, Besson’s 1997 sci-fi classic “The Fifth Element.” Now, Besson’s cinematic adaptation of his beloved childhood comic, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” hits theaters in all of its glorious spectacle.
Besson has created an intoxicating, visually enchanting world in “Valerian” — one that is richly, imaginatively rendered, deeply textured and almost overwhelming. This film drops you into an outer space world that knows no limits on space, time and dimensionality, and asks the viewer to go along for this deeply weird roller coaster ride.
Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne star as Valerian and Laureline, who are federal space agents, a combo of FBI, undercover cops and Secret Service. They’re tasked with securing a rare converter being sold on the black market, but the seemingly simple mission leads to a governmental conspiracy to cover up the genocide of the peaceful Mül people 30 years ago.
The surviving Mül people, staging their own small resistance, are like the Na’vi from “Avatar,” not only in bearing — the Mül look like tall, thin pearlescent Masai warriors — but in the way they coexist in peaceful equality with their environment. Fighting for their existence is the noblest of causes. While the duo chase down leads, Valerian makes an attempt to woo Laureline.
There’s not much tangible chemistry between DeHaan and Delevingne. They’re both slight and wispy, not quite filling the suits of these powerful space heroes — at times they look like kids next to their foes. DeHaan feels miscast, not the rakish playboy charmer as this film tries to present him. He fades over the course of the film, while Delevingne comes to the forefront, with a magnetic screen presence established through the sheer force of her eyes.