"Valerian" review

High octane insanity never looked so cool yet felt so mundane.

I have gone out of my way to make it transparently clear that I am a major proponent of both genre storytelling and pure pulp fiction.

I believe that the stories that we tell ourselves to inspire, incite outrage, explore the boundaries of the human condition, and simply entertain for the sake of it provide a peek into the human subconscious that we can all learn from on some level and if the only purpose of a piece of fiction is to distract you from the stresses of everyday life for a few moments with a mildly diverting bit of drama and adventure to leave you clear headed from the wear and tear of daily trials, that should be justification enough for a story’s existence.

The primary reason that I feel the need to lay this out explicitly is to reaffirm that when I say “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” blows, you the reader understand that it’s for a reason in the movie’s shoddy craftsmanship that I had to witness for a merciless 2 hours and 15 minutes.

An adaptation of the French space opera comic book series “Valerian and Laureline,” Luc Besson’s blockbuster epic following the titular government agents of the space faring United Human Federation sees its protagonists catapulted from top to bottom of a multicultural space station populated and maintained by every civilized space faring species in the galaxy in order to get to the bottom of a conspiracy that puts the station and its innocent civilians at risk.

What ensues from the visual splendor tied together by a scattershot plot that robs nearly every beat of moment to moment impact stands as final evidence that perhaps Besson would be better suited to the longer, variety driven, and more open format of television than film.

The orgy of CGI and green screen from the film’s trailers placed as priority over a sense of character or story was a bad omen of things to come but the first 10 minutes or so of “Valerian” do actually manage to impress.

David Bowie’s “Ground Control to Major Tom” plays over a montage of the International Space Station’s construction over the course of several decades, gradually involving every country on Earth before making first contact with Aliens, only for each new visiting civilization amongst the stars to add their own piece to the station.

All of the extraterrestrial additions create the base for the titular City of a Thousand Planets and it’s the kind of warm and touching moment that wouldn’t be out of place in an excellent piece of “Star Trek” media.

The film then makes a jarring edit to the unexpected final days of a primitive civilization whose doom is brought about by the crash of an advanced alien warship, with all of the drama and heartache one would expect of a people meeting their end at the unintentional hands of forces that they couldn’t comprehend.

At this point, we’re once more launched into the perspective of our protagonists and this is where the downfall of the film begins.

Looking at the influence that the movie’s source material has clearly had on the realm of science fiction and fantasy along with all of the individual components of the film itself, what there is to like about this property and its imaginative setting serving as the romping ground for 2 loveably roguish leads is very clear.

Unfortunately, “Valerian” is sunken by its own lack of organization that miserably fails to be anchored by strong likable leads.

The title character, played by Dane DeHaan, is a bit of a one note dunce that never really feels particularly effective as an elite government operative capable of uncovering an interstellar conspiracy when he’s even able to actively contribute to the plot at all.

However, since DeHaan is a solid enough actor to sell a little bit of leading man charm to the character, he gets off far better than Cara Delevingne, who sells her role with all of the conviction and intensity of a wannabe cheerleader that can give you a 4 minute dissertation on why she should be team captain with a disinterested sneer but can’t be bothered to show up to an actual practice.

Watching her try and fail miserably to be an arrogant badass can be excruciating to watch and because so much of the film’s emotional center aims to be the relationship and chemistry between Laureline and Valerian, almost every moment in which the 2 share the screen consistently whiplashes between unintentionally hilarious at best and cringe worthy at worst.

With a plot so fragmented that it feels like a mishmash of scripts from 3 entirely different science fantasy flicks, “Valerian’s” sole purpose is clearly to bank on the strength of its extensive visuals, which is a weak territory for it to make its last stand as they’re not particularly impressive. The movie certainly looks good, no arguments there but it’s a far cry from great or innovative.

Say what you will of James Cameron’s “Avatar” and its stock plot as a means of showcasing a new style of visual effects but at least the effects of that film and its intended viewing experience were something genuinely new and experimental that not only impressed on that front but contributed to a technological infrastructure that has helped produce similar effects of quality and innovation put to even more effective usage in storytelling down the line.

There are only 2 moments in which “Valerian” manages to even come close to feeling like an actual film. One of which occurs in a subplot where Valerian recruits the help of a shape shifting exotic dancer, played by Rihanna, who not only performs an astonishing pole dance with acrobatics that would make Spider-Man jealous, but leans harder on the sci-fi element of movie by offering a glimpse into the life of a hopeful immigrant stuck in a seedy and unfortunate position.

Her performance is so dead on that she somehow manages to become a more fully fleshed out, developed, and realized character in less than 20 minutes than the film’s own leads that have eaten up 90% of the screen time. Even her chemistry with DeHaan was so much better I found myself wishing that Delevingne was making the plot mandated exit from the movie instead of her.

The waste of her talent along with a moment near the movie’s climax that plays on the type of political twist to sci-fi regarding the fates of minorities in relation to society at large that bring to mind some of the best moments in franchises like “Star Trek” and “Mass Effect” are just about the only saving graces in this bafflingly edited and overly produced mess of a production so odd in its creative choices that I almost mistook a technical error with the speakers of my auditorium for another odd production choice without missing a beat.

However, none of those positives excuse that “Valerian’s” most worthwhile content eats up less time than a commercial free episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” while still daring to take up over 2 hours of your time.

And although the movie is ultimately inoffensive and harmless if you’re just out for a good time, I’m not going to excuse its brand of laziness in a summer that’s seen more entertaining lesser films (Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Baby Driver), and I’m especially not accepting the “popcorn fun” excuse 7 days after I was brought to tears by the endeavors of talking apes orchestrating a prison riot against a skinhead Woody Harrelson.

4 Computer Generated Cosmoses out of 10