Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
You should watch this if: you want some well-paced action & an impressive visual journey. The main conclusion, though, is that the movie didn’t impress overall because they tried to do too much.
I remember being impressed by the visual elements when the trailers were coming out, so it was on my list of movies to watch, but after underwhelming reviews came out, I couldn’t get myself to go out and watch it in theaters — which I kind of regret now.
But the visuals introducing these many differing new environments really were pretty amazing. That’s why I now regret the fact that I didn’t watch it in theaters. If I were going to watch this movie, I wish I had watched it in a more immersive environment. So the conclusion: at least watch this on a big screen TV and not on a computer/phone.
And if you’re looking for some mindless action to watch, this isn’t too bad for that either. It’s not as action-packed as maybe a martial arts movie would be, but it’s a fun journey from an action perspective.
But, what went wrong? They didn’t do a good job of introducing the world and its nuances. One aspect I had trouble understanding was what the human race’s role was in this universe. They kind of introduced us “humans” as potentially primitive/weak compared to the rest of the universe. But then the “humans” seemed like the main rulers of the main location of the movie, Alpha, the “City of a Thousand Planets”. Another question that consequently developed for me was about what the role of the “City of a Thousand Planets” was in the overall universe?
You know how with super hero movies, they always have that origin movie? Well, basically, they messed up the “origin” aspect of this world. There were just too many questions in regards to the set up of the movie. Like, it wasn’t until the very last segment of this over 2 hour movie, that I understood the ramifications (to this particular universe) of the mission that our main characters were on.
So I’m not sure whether to blame the director, the producer, or the writer. I’m not sure that they could have done much better with the scope that they were trying to achieve.
One more confusing segment for me was the part where Rihanna shows up. Like, it was a cool aside, but the main story could have moved along even if that segment didn’t exist. The only role that it played in the larger story was to give the romance of the two main characters a little more depth, showing that he’ll go all out to rescue to her. But if they had completely axed that segment (a good 20+ minutes?), the movie would’ve been fine.
If the overall movie had been great, then it would’ve just been a nice, cool segment, but because the overall storyline was lacking, I wish they had used that time in some other way to develop the story better.
This is nitpicking, but I did think that the movie could have fared a bit better if they had gotten a bit more charismatic lead actor. The lead actress did fine because the story wasn’t demanding very much from her: be bad-ass & constantly reject the main actor. But in this story, the main actor (the namesake of the movie, Valerian) was the one who was supposed to drive the story…but unfortunately, at times it felt like he was getting dragged by the story and not driving it.
Honestly, though, if they had just been a bit less ambitious with how much they wanted to cover in this movie, the choice of actor would’ve been fine. It’s just a thought that perhaps a more charismatic actor could have carried the frenetic pace a bit better?
It’s a bit disappointing. I enjoyed how each individual segment of the movie was portrayed. The script writing was a bit cliche, but worked pretty well in its individual segments. If they had decided to tackle a smaller scope, there were a lot of great elements here that could’ve created a much better movie :\.
OVERALL SCORE: 6.5
- STORY: 6.0/10
- DIRECTING: 7.0/10
- WRITING: 6.5/10
- LEAD Actors: 7.0/10
- SUPPORTING Cast: 6.5/10
- CINEMATOGRAPHY: 8.5/10
- MUSIC: Okay, didn’t notice it
- WATCH again with future spouse? 2/10 (if we were in the mood for something visual, but not in the mood for something like Interstellar?)
The run down: Story had a hard time carrying the movie, but watchable if in the mood for some action or stunning visual landscapes.
