Valerian -- a review

Twenty years after the release of his The Fifth Element, director Luc Besson regales us with another imaginative science fiction film. But where The Fifth Element was from his own fertile imagination, Valerian and the City Of A Thousand Planets is based on a French comic book series that’s been running for half a century, now, making it older than Star Wars, and almost as old as Star Trek. Valerian was a big bomb when it was released this past August--but unlike most big-budget tent pole films that underperform at the box office, Valerian didn’t deserve to be ignored by audiences.

Starring Dane DeHaan and Carla Delevingne as a pair of interstellar space agents, Valerian is visual eye candy in the best sense of the word. Opening on the beaches of an alien planet, with a fully realized alien civilization lounging by the ocean until a cataclysmic event ruins their day, the viewer is immersed in this imaginative science fiction universe that’s just as vividly created as the Star Wars or Star Trek universes. The main plot takes place on the City of a Thousand Planets, a super massive space station that’s home to several million humans and aliens.

If this sounds like Babylon 5, or Deep Space Nine, bear in mind that this specific Valerian space station storyline had originally been published in France back in the late 1960s. It could be argued that a lot of the storylines and/or production design of many science fiction films of the last fifty years could have been borrowed, or inspired by, the original Valerian books. But as far as the Valerian film is concerned, it’s a fun, entertaining romp through a highly imaginative world that’s filled with aliens of all shapes and sizes. Besson even manages to slip in a sly jab at both consumerism and tourism during the ’big market’ section of the film, utilizing science fiction as it was originally intended for, to comment on our current society and mores.

The only downside is that the script tends to favor humor over story logic, such as when Delevingne’s Sgt. Laureline gets abducted despite wearing an armored suit that could have allowed her to fight her way out of any situation. But this also leads to a very funny confrontation later between Laureline and a female alien who’s trying to dress her up for a meeting with the king. The film’s ample charms--along with its magnificent scenery and effects--outweigh any plot holes and other quibbles. If you’re a science fiction fan looking for a fun popcorn film, look no further than Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. --SF

Comments

Explorer From Another World

It’s Friday night during the summer in Beutter county, an idyllic farming community in Indiana, and the good folks are settling in for what should be another humdinger of an evening. Until their plans are shattered by the arrival of an Explorer From Another World! This turns out to be an alien (Gemma Sterling) who starts savagely killing people from the moment it disembarks from its flying saucer. Local kids Eddie (Colin McCorquodale), Marybeth (Sage Marchand) and Culpepper (Nolan Gay) are planning on seeing a movie, but it looks like they’ll be battling for the very survival of the human race instead! Explorer From Another World is a wonderfully done throwback to the B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Ably directed by Woody Edwards (who gives himself a small cameo as Hank in the sheriff’s jail cell), the film is forty five minutes long, but manages to tell its torrid but funny story very effectively in the time allotted. And the short running time tracks when you...

Presence -- A Review

Presence, the latest film from director Steven Soderbergh ( Sex, Lies and Videotape, Out Of Sight ), is based on his real life experiences with what he believes is a ghost in his own home. Inspired by his spectral roommate, Soderbergh wrote a few pages of a script, which he handed to David Koepp ( Panic Room, Jurassic Park ), who finished it. The film was shot in a house in Crandall, New Jersey, over just eleven days in September 2023 (they received an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement during the strike that year). Soderbergh shot this in the ‘found footage’ style, using only one camera, with himself as the camera operator. The result is that Presence is a haunted house story that is told from the point of view of the ghost. And it’s marvelous. But instead of the typical ’found footage’ movie, which is supposed to be culled together from film or video that is literally found after the fact, we see everything that’s happening in this house through the ‘eye...

Cleaner -- a review

In Cleaner Daisy Ridley ( Star Wars: The Force Awakens ) stars as Joanna “Joey” Locke, a window cleaner at a swanky London office building that serves as the headquarters for an energy company. Joey becomes late for work when she’s forced to take her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) to her job with her. Because of her lateness, her nimrod of a manager makes Joey work an hour late, well into the evening. Joey reluctantly keeps cleaning windows of bird splatter in the darkness, but eventually bird droppings wind up being the least of her problems. A team of terrorists arrive at a party that’s being held at the office for the energy company’s share holders. Disguised as performers, the terrorists seize the energy company’s board members as hostages, while knocking everybody else out with gas. Joey, still working on the windows outside, sees all of this and promptly goes into action. Because, as the film has earlier established, Joey is a former Britis...

The View From The Mountain

Search This Blog