Directed by: Luc Besson
Written by: Luc Besson, based upon Valerian and Laureline by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen
IMDb Link
Sometimes a fictional world filled with incredible ideas and imagination is brought to life. Star Wars, Harry Potter, these films are good stories with enjoyable characters that take place in a beautiful world just brimming with potential. Valerian is a lot like that, but without the "good stories" and "enjoyable characters".
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
The film follows Major Valeriean (DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Delevingne) as they explore a dark conspiracy aboard the gigantic space metropolis of Alpha, a place filled with thousands of cultures and alien species.
The best thing that this film does is give us a tour of Alpha and the world in which Valerian and Laureline inhabit. Every five minutes there's a new and creative sci-fi idea brought to focus, like an extra-dimensional market that can only be interacted with on our plane of existence through special technology, or a small creature that can produce more of anything it eats. So much of it is conveniently timed in its introduction, just so happening to be available in the moment when our characters need it, but it's something I can accept in this post-scarcity utopia that's the result of so many people and cultures combining their understanding. It takes a bit of tension out of some scenes, as you can always be sure that when something bad happens to the characters they'll be able to find something to save them, but the world up on screen is pure imagination.
Truth be told, it's not so much the story that's the problem as it is how the story is presented. Everything about who the characters are or the fantastical design of Alpha are simply told to us directly. There's no chance to be wowed by a lot of what the city has to offer, we're just told everything up front, so instead of observing some cool, of-the-wall creature or environment, it's a plain reaction of "oh, this is that thing that they talked about before". This is even worse in the case of Valerian and Laureline's dialogue about each other, which doesn't hold any actual chemistry and just forces us to understand that Valerian is some rugged cowboy type in a soldier's uniform and that he loves Laureline, and that Laureline is uninterested because of Valerian's swath of sexual escapades in his past. Not only is this clunky dialogue that's delivered poorly, it also runs counter to what we see Valerian do as the film progresses. It seems as if these two were introduced to us about two-thirds of the way through their own story, and rather than suggest history through light barbs or genuine moments we have to understand exactly how their history has been, no matter how out of sync that seems with what we actually see.
With that in mind, I hate to say it because I like the guy's acting, but DeHaan is the weaker of the two here. Not only is he performing in a way that seems stiff and clunky, but the character he's portraying is unlike how he's performed in the past, so when we see through the thin veil set by his performance it's hard not to think of how out of place he seems in his role. I was actually surprised by how much I liked Cara Delevingne's performance by comparison. She's not great, and she's still working with clunky and unnatural sounding dialogue, but she definitely seems more at home in the sort of role that requires her to be serious and severe on the surface with an obvious softer side beneath.
The Verdict: Valerian is a gorgeous empty shell. While it has a vibrant and imaginative world to share, the story and characters it attempts to ground you with are shallow and forgettable, a point which isn't helped by the often appallingly bad dialogue. I won't recommend against it, because the film's world really does a lot for the experience, but I won't tell you to go see it either.
Rating: 5/10
Published Friday, August 11th, 2017
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