{"id":2708,"date":"2017-07-25T11:17:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T18:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/?p=2708"},"modified":"2018-09-04T12:52:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T19:52:48","slug":"2708","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/2017\/07\/25\/2708\/","title":{"rendered":"Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Written and Directed by: Luc Besson
\nStarring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Kris Wu, Sam Spruell
\nRated: PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action, suggestive material and brief language<\/p>\n

Luc Besson\u2019s films tend to be deeply strange and more than a little suspension-of-disbelief-crushing. \u201cLucy\u201d had such bad science, it was actively painful, for example. But then, his films also have such strange and beautiful weirdness that if it\u2019s your thing, you can gloss over the parts that don\u2019t make sense or are otherwise annoying. \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets\u201d is no different. There are a thousand things to love about it, and a thousand things to hate, and which of those will make you, as an individual, love or hate the film as a whole is almost impossible to say.<\/p>\n

The story boils down to a mystery involving a missing planet, a miraculous (and thankfully indestructible) alien creature, and a pair of government agents determined to figure out what\u2019s happening and save the day. Along the way, all kinds of familiar elements are woven in. One of the agents, Laureline (Cara Delevingne), is brilliant and sharp and not at all interested in the constant romantic overtures of her partner. That partner is Valerian (Dane DeHaan), a cocky and rule-bending swashbuckling-ladykiller type. He is, of course, smitten with the one woman he can\u2019t have, his partner.<\/p>\n

Where the film shines brightest is in the overwhelming creativity of its alien beings, creatures, and tools. Besson reportedly called for submissions from artists around the world, and received over 3,500. These artists didn\u2019t work together, so their creations don\u2019t have the kind of stylistic through-line you see when a few people design hundreds of creatures and their environments. They feel much more genuinely diverse than those of most flashy space movies. <\/p>\n

The settings have a similar diversity to them, and a richness that\u2019s familiar to any fan of Besson\u2019s work. This is a man who wrote a 20-page paper on the modular housing used in \u201cThe Fifth Element,\u201d after all, and he bought the rights to the series of French graphic novels \u201cValentine and Lorelai\u201d ages ago. He was apparently waiting for special effects to improve. He raised the money himself, wrote the screenplay himself, directed it himself. This is Besson\u2019s best qualities as a filmmaker dialed to eleven because he\u2019s had so long to fine-tune everything.<\/p>\n

His flaws show up as well, of course. Like a lot of his films, there\u2019s a strong central woman, but almost all the plot-affecting characters (the government representatives, heads of departments, and their close subordinates) are all male. The film even leaves Laureline out of the title, only mentioning Valerian. The chemistry between our protagonists doesn\u2019t have much in the way of time to grow, so the film relies on familiar storytelling shorthand to sketch out their relationship. The focus here is on the worldbuilding, not on character development or realism.<\/p>\n

\u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets\u201d succeeds wildly at being entertaining and visually astonishing. If your favorite part of the old \u201cStar Wars\u201d movies is Mos Eisley and the other alien backwaters the characters visit, this is a movie for you. If you dislike it when films prioritize spectacle over character, stay far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written and Directed by: Luc Besson Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Kris Wu, Sam Spruell Rated: PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action, suggestive material and brief language Luc Besson\u2019s films tend to be deeply strange and more than a little suspension-of-disbelief-crushing. \u201cLucy\u201d had such bad science, it was actively painful, for example. But then, his films also have such strange and beautiful weirdness that if it\u2019s your thing, you can gloss over the parts that don\u2019t make sense or are otherwise annoying. \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets\u201d is no different. There are a thousand things to love about it, and a thousand things to hate, and which of those will make you, as an individual, love or hate the film as a whole is almost impossible to say. The story boils down to a mystery involving a missing planet, a miraculous (and thankfully indestructible) alien creature, and a pair of<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[57,49],"class_list":["post-2708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-rated-pg-13","tag-sci-fi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/ValerianandTheCityofaThousandPlanets.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2oSX4-2708","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}