Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Hollywood keeps reinforcing an incredulous idea: average- looking dudes are in the same league as hot women. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets also plays into this straight-male wish-fulfillment fantasy, with its titular lead, a soldier in a galactic federation, played by the sullen, pale, puffy- eyed Dane DeHaan ( The Amazing Spider- Man). His romantic/ professional partner, Sergeant Laureline, is played by the striking British model Cara Delevingne.
The two go on a dangerous mission to retrieve a rare creature that craps out energy in the shape of beautiful pearls, from a desert planet containing a virtually simulated market. The film is a hodgepodge of sci- fi influences: the kooky variety of aliens in the bazaar recalls Star Wars, the utilitarian inter-planet federation is vaguely Starfleet-esque.
Soon enough, the duo is alienated from their assignment and team, headed by a bullish commander ( Clive Warren). Valerian and Laureline begin to unravel a conspiracy involving an intelligent alien species that once lived on a paradise planet that was mysteriously blown up. That’s a brief synopsis of the film’s convoluted 137- minute narrative that uses digressions — Rihanna plays a shape-shifting erotic entertainer in one memorable but unnecessary episode — as its primary method for fantastical world building.
The results are kaleidoscopic, though anyone familiar with French director Luc Besson’s work ( The Fifth Element, Lucy) will not be surprised. Valerian and the City is colourful, multitudinous, often imaginative, but the lack of internal logic lessens the stakes for the viewer to care about. The actual core of the story — about the terrible mistreatment of the intelligent, nature-loving alien species — is an explicit but surprisingly compelling allegory about the brutality of colonialism and capitalism.
The film, however, is more interested in its romantic human leads than the pacifist, aliens. It’s a shame, given the fleeting moral conflict Valerian and Laureline face in not following orders is actually the most interesting part of the movie. Instead of further investigating this conflict, it’s easily resolved by a Power of Love trope. How cheesy.
The film’s misguided reliance on romance is present from the get-go, when Valerian hits on Laureline, only to be rebuffed. He hits on her again, she rebuffs him again. And so on. But Valerian’s pick-up lines aren’t even cheesy, they’re creepy, as he goes from wanting to sleep with Laureline to wanting to marry her within a single scene, because for some reason in the future, humans still believe a legally binding contract is a romantic gesture.
The lacklustre dialogue is made worse by the casting. DeHaan is naturally creepy, not charismatic, and he keeps trying to deepen his raspy voice to sound more roguishly heroic and masculine. Delevingne’s haughty Laureline meanwhile, plays into yet another stereotype of female bossiness, having to prove every five seconds how much smarter and stronger she is than her male peer. For a story set hundreds of years in the future, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets feels woefully antiquated even in 2017.