Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Directed by Luc Besson
“Imagine if someone projected an entire decade’s worth of sci-fi space epics on the same screen, at the same time,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire.com. That’s roughly what it’s like watching Luc Besson’s nearly hallucinogenic new intergalactic adventure based on a French graphicnovel series. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne co-star as Valerian and Laureline—28th-century police agents charged with maintaining order in a floating space metropolis occupied by thousands of colorful alien species. Unfortunately, the two stars are “immensely bland,” and the vividness of the setting “only underscores the lifelessness of the people leading us through it.” Fortunately, the world they inhabit
proves “unrelentingly stunning,” said Josephine Livingstone in NewRepublic.com. In one scene, Valerian races through the city by running directly through walls, and each new environment he encounters—a fruit orchard, a techno rave, a sea’s life-packed depths—is awe-inspiring: “I couldn’t take the smile off my face.” Twenty years ago, Besson took a break from more mainstream fare to create The Fifth Element, another whimsical sci-fi adventure that audiences seemed unready for, said Chris Nashawaty in Entertainment Weekly. But that earlier helping of “cosmic cotton candy” gradually became a cult favorite. “I’d guess that Valerian will suffer a similar fate.”