Tropic Sprockets / Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

By Ian Brockway

The legendary Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) has ambitious goals as he strives to capture the verve of the graphic novels Valerian and Laureline and put them on an epic pedestal to rival “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” but as a film, the auteur is only half successful.

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is a visual feast and at times it reaches the height of what is honestly surreal, and it is beautiful to look upon, but plot wise, the film gets bogged down with seeming endless battle scenes and an  array of alien life forms that look much like another. The eye glazes over from too many lasers, ships and walrus-like creatures.

Much becomes too much.

I will admit that the film starts with a bang. One is treated to a bit of (semi-fictional) space history over David Bowie’s famously haunting song “Major Tom” and the film is perfectly in synch. Shortly thereafter, we see the planet Mul, where a humanoid form live in peace. They sleep inside what resembles a human ear, spending their days on a beach that looks like an Yves Tanguy landscape as if interpreted by Sandals Resorts. Most every hour is spent gathering psychedelic pearls to be used as a life force. One day though, their tranquility is interupted when warships invade and their small dragon-like pets are taken from them, which are used as energy converters.

Agents Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are sent to get back the stolen pet / converter and to find out who is behind the war-mongering.

As noted earlier, the scenery is exquisite, primarily when Valerian finds himself on a planetary area that is like Venice Beach with every single galactic inhabitant represented. Here he finds Bubble, (the singer Rihanna) a shape-shifter and gets treated to a kaliedoscopic Burlesque show accompanied by an odd Ethan Hawke.

The singer does well and the film is at is best when it feels associative and almost Fellini-esque.

But by midway the film feels derivative of “Avatar” and other space operas with an indigenous group being taken advantage of for resources, not to mention that several of the extraterrestrials look like Jabba the Hutt.

Despite all of the gold and velvet and some set peices right out of Salvador Dali, this is a rather humdrum story of Good Vs. Evil, chasing ship after ship. Even Valerian’s vessel resembles the Millenium Falcon.

The opening of “Valerian” has a real surprise and wonder with those magical Pearl beings who look and feel like exotic diamonds in human form, yet after twenty explosions and screams later with a villain who looks far from menacing (played by a comically brocaded Clive Owen) you don’t have to be Obi-Wan Kenobi to know that this is not the film you’re looking for.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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