Saturday, July 22, 2017

Valerian - Movie Review

We don't see a whole lot of movies any more and since the volume is low I try to keep the quality high. Last night on a whim we saw "Valerian" and boy I wish I hadn't...

The trailer looks pretty good:



Its a Luc Besson movie, he did "The Fifth Element" which I'm a big fan of and I'd hoped this movie would be similar. In a way it was, this isn't "science fiction" since that would require some kind of real science. The film ignores science and physics almost completely. Gravity exists pretty much everywhere, all the time as does, apparently anyway, air.

Dane DeHaan isn't an actor I'd seen before but his portrayal of Agent Valerian is one of a spoiled man-child. He's at once a super tough fighter and suddenly a limp noodle. Cara Delevigne's Sergeant Laureline may have set the cause of women's rights back 15 years. My friend rightly pointed out "She never did anything useful in the whole film." Thats not 100% true, she saved Valerian's life exactly once, then she immediately got kidnapped apparently forgetting that in the previous scene we'd seen her with a gun. She plays the helpless maiden to the hilt, sergeants around the world will cover their eyes in shame.

Rhianna makes a completely unnecessary but appearance only to be killed off within minutes of her introduction. Its especially sad because hers was one of the best characters in the film, of course the character is ruined in a completely pointless and sappy death scene...

With plot holes you could fly a 747 through and lead actors that look and sound like petulant teenagers I'm stunned by how positive the reviews online are with most reviewers commenting on how good it looked. I can't disagree more with that, the imagery is overly busy with no common look or theme to be found anywhere. I see that this was all based on a comic, while the movie thoroughly sucked I'm interested in reading the source material and feel bad for the author who's vision was implemented so poorly.


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