I really liked this! It's fun, quirky and visually stunning. It's not without its faults but it's an enjoyable movie that I hope finds an audience.

I too really enjoyed it. First the obvious, it looks amazing. I couldn't find anything I would change visually. It also had a much better sense of humor than I was expecting. I laughed out loud several times (and it's intentional humor). The critics mostly say the leads don't have chemistry. This is only partly true, and is misleading. They lack romantic chemistry, and some of that can't be blamed on the actors, but rather the way the romantic storyline is introduced. However, the leads do have pretty good chemistry as co-agents working together, which I didn't expect due to the reviews. The movie feels kind of long only because the romantic storyline makes it drag every time it cuts to a scene of that.

Unfortunately, the movie is probably a bit too PG-13 for younger kids, due the the character design of the Pearls, the "romantic" scenes, and the Rihanna dance. So the WOM from parents might not be great if they take younger kids to it.

Other things I liked... the Converter is super cute, and I thought the opening scene showing the evolution of Alpha was great.

Overall, I thought there was much more to like than dislike about this film. I hope it isn't too big of a financial bomb.

8/10

Considered only as a feat of imagery and world building, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is masterful. The film opens incredibly well with a David Bowie-set montage tracing a line from the first joint Soviet-U.S. space flight in 1975 to the distant-future creation of "Alpha," a sprawling outer-space metropolis home to millions of aliens and humans living in harmony and sharing knowledge. It is a hypnotic start, a joyous rush of science-fiction optimism and outlandish art direction and creature design. The film in general is a pleasure in motion; there are points where I almost wished I could pause to absorb every neon-and-stardust detail in every frame. Director Luc Besson stages several clever set pieces, including a foot chase through a type of virtual-reality bazaar. Unfortunately, this is also a film with a screenplay and a cast. The actors range from bored veterans—Clive Owen is stiff as a military leader so obviously compromised and sinister from the start, it hardly registers as a twist when the curtain is lifted—to gifted, but miscast new talents—Dane DeHaan's anxious, angular presence is a poor fit for a traditional space-opera hero—to the simply not very gifted (apologies, Cara Delevingne). And the script contains Attack of the Clones-level romantic bromides and sleep-inducing doses of exposition and jargon. The film runs nearly two hours and 20 minutes, and one can definitely sense it losing steam in the second half as wondrous new sights and sounds become further and farther between and actual investment in the characters is relied upon.

C+

A ghastly dumpster fire trainwreck of a movie. When Cara Delevingne is giving the best performance in a film you know something is deeply wrong with the final product. Almost none of this movie works. The script is absolutely atrocious and filled with cheesy one-liners and failed attempts at creating some sort of epic plot. The characters are idiotic and their motivations make no sense. The ending is anticlimactic. The special effects are ugly, and the Avatar-lite creatures are insufferable. Dane DeHaan gives what is maybe the year's worst performance so far, but is also incredibly miscast. Him and Delevingne (who is also bad, but at least gives her role some energy and spunk as opposed to DeHaan's one flat line reading after another) have no chemistry and their romance is never believable. Clive Owen sucks as the big villain of the piece, and Ethan Hawke shows up out of nowhere in a pointless cameo. Rihanna is in the movie for five minutes and while her character shows promise at first the second her character name is revealed all credibility goes out the window. I have absolutely no idea what Luc Besson was going for with this movie but it did not work for me. It's so bad. D

This doesn't make sense.

Who ever thought these two actors as leads was a good idea? I couldn't think of a worse pairing for this type of film.

I still haven't gotten over how awful this movie was.

"I'd die for you."

Kill me.

Seriously. Anyone else than these two and the movie would have been so much better.

It has the visual aura and some good bits but it never gives a breather for good parts an the times we can breathe are the love story bits that just don't connect. I did like Cara here much better than Suicide Squad but DeHaan was just bad from his standards which is where the film fails the most an intriguing titular lead character. Besson does good in terms of generating action and visual spectacle but the things ongoing fail to hold attention.

5/10

The lead actors are getting appropriately shat on, but I still enjoyed this. The world building is on point and its always a visual feast. I could have used more scenes like interrogating the Trunked Trio and less declarations of love (Dehaan's delivery of these lines always made me wonder if he was being sarcastic). Cara is smoking hot as her no-nonsense agent character, so that helps a little with her poor acting. Rihanna tops her in both categories though. I believed her insecurity about Valerian not liking her performance.

So its a fun world to be in for two hours, I just wish we could have spent that time with some more kooky characters instead of a teenage-esque romance.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is simply too good for the provincial masses of this single doomed planet. An explosion of imagination crafted from a trillion pixels of exquisite cgi provide the lived-in universe in which the rip-roaring story takes place. Cara Delevigne and Dane DeHaan provide a satisfyingly smart aleck POV, while maintaining Besson's unapologetically romantic spin on life. It's sad that we live in an age where if the original Star Wars were released for the first time today, it would bomb at the box office and be derided by the mindless mob of internet drones. Valerian is awe-inspiring on first watch and promises to unfold fresh wonders on repeated viewings. *A+*

There's not much new or interesting to this film, it's more fantasy-sci-fi staple which I've seen come around in larger and smaller parts elsewhere. Visually there's plenty to marvel at in the film and it keeps the action going for the most part that it doesn't drag, yet it could be wrapped up a bit quicker at the end. The main issue with the film are the leads, and the way of story telling. I still liked Delevingne to some extent even she lacks range, but DeHaan is much more of a misfire as I find him unconvincing as the cocky playboy (a role Pine for example plays much better in Star Trek). Then the film has this cartoony way of dialogue; smirk here, wink there, sure it's based on a comic, but it feels forced the way it's translated to the screen. There's nice parts for Ethan Hawke and Clive Owen in the film and I wasn't bored, it just felt like quite an unnecessary venture..

C

Yeah this wasn't very good at all, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least fascinated by the whole thing. I mean I liked the world this movie was set in enough that it pretty much kept my interest throughout, but outside the visuals there really isn't much else to like about it. The action sequences are beyond mundane and Dane DeHaan/ Cara Delevingne are just the worst kind of leads you can have in a movie like this, because they have absolutely no chemistry and their dialogue is awful. I honestly can't even decide who was the worst of the two which is sad, because I've enjoyed DeHaan in other films, but in no way should be be playing a Han Solo type and Delevingne just sucks all together. Both were equally, badly miscast IMO.

If I had any other positives it would be that while Clive Owen and Ethan Hawke are wasted I did feel that their characters brought some kind of energy or personalty to the film, and I actually liked the Rihanna scene, but hated when they turned her into a talking, CGI Jellyfish. Her voice became so fucking irritating all of a sudden that it was jarring.

C

I really enjoyed it. It's fantastic eye candy. And despite being miscast by 5 (DeHann) to 10 (Delevingne) years (or just cut out Valerian's line about his history with numerous women...he does not look 31) I actually thought they had decent enough chemistry. I kind of wish I had got around to it when it was in theaters.

B+