
‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ is basicly the spectacle that ‘The Fifth Element’ was back in it’s day.
While Luc Besson continues to master the presentation of the worlds he’s bringing to the screen, he also chooses to tell simple stories within them, which can be fun at times, but end up being very predictable throughout the course. Maybe thats the reason he chose to make Pierre Christin’s and Jean-Claude Mézières’ work (released in 1967) into a movie. Maybe it even was his inspiration to write ‘The Fifth Element’ in the first place.
The chemistry between Valerian (played by Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (played by Cara Delevingne) felt very weird and a bit one dimensional at times, but gave the protagonists enough motivation to keep going. But you can feel that the source material came from a time, where space and love where the biggest things imaginable in cinema and comics.
This may also explain the pretty simple story as well.
But this can be forgiven in a certain extend by the wonderful visuals Luc Besson and his team delivered here. Its vivid, colorful, full of fantastic ideas and also has funny and adventurous moments, that were engaging and kept me interested.
I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s Luc Besson at its core. Cool looking, simple, but entertaining.
7 out of 10.
