Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

After its very promising start followed by playful adventures that sometimes add nothing to the plot (product placement by Hawke and Rihanna targeted at American audiences), Valerian ends just in the way you’ve been expecting since about the midpoint of the movie, without any effort to freshen up all the genre clichés. It seems like Luc Besson used up all of his imagination on monsters, set designs and visual details that are pleasant to see, but he didn’t care whether the viewer would remember anything after his spectacle is over. The only thing I remember is Cara Delevingne, which is thanks to her performance and the work of her costume designer. And does a director with Besson’s reputation really need to have it explained to him that Clive Owen is a bad fit for this type of villain and that the film would have greatly benefited if Owen switched characters with Sam Spruell? (18/07/2017)

Deeply disappointing and one of Luc Besson's worst films. The film has only two good things: the beautiful model-lesbian Cara Delevingne and the excellent five minute performance by Rihanna, which is very little for the most expensive European science fiction flick. The effects are too colourful and fabulous for my taste, there is very little action and above all it is uninteresting, the pace is incredibly slow, the two hours in the cinema dragged unbelievably, somewhere in the middle of the film I looked at my watch and planned my escape, I just couldn't stand another hour, well I did stay in the end, but this just didn't work. It's just not a good movie. 35%. (20/08/2017)

Valerian is beautiful proof that Besson is a top craftsman who can work with visual effects as well as James Cameron, but unfortunately only a mediocre storyteller; or rather, a filmmaker who wants to please everyone and is too wrapped up in his own creation. How else to explain that such a simple plot is stretched to 130 minutes and instead of working on the supporting characters and creating a coherent structure, the script repeatedly flounders in dead ends and lets us get to know only the two title characters. Fortunately, it all looks breathtaking, the sophistication of the various settings is perhaps richer than in any SW, some scenes are truly epic, and the whole thing is surprisingly dominated by the mesmerizing Cara Delevingne, who oozes charisma and I don't have to explain how difficult it would be to play alongside her in a tight jumpsuit or, heaven forbid, just a pair of shorts (in this respect, one must also admire the otherwise traditionally bland DeHaan). I'd love to see this made by Cameron, who would add drama, more epicness and maybe even Arnold... Rihanna's cameo is great, though completely irrelevant to the story (as are many other elements). 65% (26/12/2017)

I think that despite all the enthusiasm, energy and breathtaking production design, we are all willing to forgive the lack of physical laws, technical fundamentals and logic. But forgiving a stale story full of boring puzzle unravelling and a predictable finale – that's too much. So if we ignore the story filler, we're left with about 50 percent of the whole, i.e. fantastic-looking filmmaking full of funny scenes (Rihanna is incredible), Luc Besson's exceptional imagination of fictional worlds, and the awesome chemistry of the central couple, with the sexy Cara Delevingne playing with Dane DeHaan like anything. The European version of Guardians of the Galaxy. (11/08/2017)

It warms the heart when one sees how Luc Besson's Valerian is for him the true First Element. I may not know the comic book, but the respect for the material and the almost childlike nurturing of everything related to its world brought a smile to my face more than once. Unfortunately, what is being nurtured is not something that can be called old-fashioned, but just outdated. Considering the year of the source material, it's unfair to criticize that we have already seen something similar countless times, but unfortunately, there are no plot twists happening in Alpha. I am also really sorry about that, because the rumors about this having the best visuals of the last decade were not wrong. Every flight, jump, or water trip takes your breath away with every pixel and erases yet another imaginary boundary of digital effects. The fact that this happens in several casually patched episodes that awkwardly drag along the central mundane plot is unfortunately just one big sigh. At the expense of the visual aspect, character development suffers as well, because the central Valerian's apparent task is only to deliver annoying lines and occasional action escapades. Dane DeHaan's unique face even tantalizes antiheroes, but cruelly fails in this case. Cara Delevingne effortlessly rises to the top, and it is perhaps thanks to her natural Laureline that she has moved on to starring roles written for her. (21/07/2017)