Support NeoGAF

[Penguin]

Starting this because wasn't sure what to expect from the movie and seems reviews are...

RottenTomatoes

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets uses sheer kinetic energy and visual thrills to overcome narrative obstacles and offer a viewing experience whose surreal pleasures often outweigh its flaws.

The Razzies don't need to wait until the end of the year to anoint a winner for 2017. The Golden Turkey Awards should be republished with a new cover. Euro-trash is back, while sci-fi will need to lick its wounds for a while. Dane DeHaan, who has starred in two of the most egregiously bloated misfires of the year with A Cure for Wellness and now this, should do a couple of indie films, while Cara Delevingne needs to learn there is more to acting than smirking and eye-rolling. Rihanna should pretend this never happened. And the Hollywood studio chiefs can breathe easy that, this time, at least, they'll escape blame for making a giant summer franchise picture that nobody wants to see, since this one's a French import.

THR

Valerian and Besson strain so hard to sizzle your retinas and knock you out with the film's oddness that it eventually becomes numbing — and then just exhausting. By the time Rihanna shows up as a shape-shifting cabaret entertainer and blows through a string of guises (roller-disco chanteuse, pole-dancing seductress, kitten-with-a-whip French maid), the whole thing just feels like a random WTF mess. Still, you have to give Besson credit for not playing it safe. He at least swings for the fences and doesn't spoon-feed you the same old sci-fi clichés. That counts for something. Not enough, but something. And who knows, maybe a decade from now, Valerian will seem as ahead of its time as The Fifth Element was — your contrarian stoner buddy's new favorite midnight movie

EW

The movie is designed to propel us from one cliffhanger to the next, and it's remarkably effective at doing so without providing a clear notion of what the duo's mission is supposed to be

Variety

It's a cynical world in which we live, even within our fantasies, and that's a big part of the reason why Luc Besson's ambitious sci-fi spectacular Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets plays like a welcome reprieve from literally everything everywhere. It welcomes the audience into a future world full of dangers and conflict, certainly, but also of hope, sensitivity, acceptance and – perhaps most importantly – the most eye-popping imagery imaginable.
Read more at http://www.craveonline.com/entertai...n-review-wonderful-worlds#UBUI9YWog6YjRhXf.99

Crave Online

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a jaw-droppingly beautiful and often delightfully exciting sci-fi adventure. Taking place in the not-so-near future, it is (like The Fifth Element before it) an uncommonly optimistic portrait of the future.

Forbes

As the long-awaited follow-up to Besson's 1997 movie, The Fifth Element, which admittedly took a lot from the Valerian and Laureline comics, the film version of Valerian is largely successful in what it sets out to do. It does a great job of world building and I really appreciate that it doesn't spend a ton of time explaining how things work, we just see things work and can fill in the rest. The alien races are all completely distinct and have societies and customs that Besson shows us but doesn't waste time on expository dialogue about who and what they are. I cannot stress how refreshing this is for a popcorn sci-fi flick, to just get to the action and only tell us what's integral to the story, using the rest as window dressing and context.

Nerdist

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a movie made by someone who knows how to seduce our eyes and ears, and knows well enough to leave our brains alone.

Village Voice

Insanity is where Besson shines anyway. ”Valerian" boasts sights you won't want to un-see. Cara Delevingne puts her head inside a jellyfish so she can spy on Dane DeHaan's memories. A cute reptile creature thing poops a flurry of pearls and diamond earrings. Rihanna shape-shifts into Herbie Hancock. The casting often plays like Mad Libs, which would explain why a game Ethan Hawke swings by as a blinged-out cowboy pimp. These are momentary pleasures, coming at ya early and often. Still, Besson's latest peaks early with a lengthy and sustained set piece that's like the bi-temporal car chase from Tony Scott's ”Deja Vu," only with aliens and a sly reference to the 3-D glasses sitting on your head as it unfolds.

Metro

So it is that Valerian bounces between visuals and aesthetics like a tie-dye themed pinball machine. In a movie where almost everything is computer-generated, it matters not a fig how ”realistic" any of it appears, because it is all so invitingly intoxicating. Force fields can be the color of rainbows, and beatific aliens with chromed domes and legs longer than Cyd Charisse can live on a planet consisting entirely of Caribbean beaches, glittering pearls, and cute beasties that are a cross between lapdogs and cuddly porcupines. That these are also the bigger spieces' source of space travel power just makes it more appealingly nutty.

Den of Geek

The summer isn't quite over, but Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is certainly the frontrunner to be named the spectacle of the summer, and while many franchises have disappointed, this is a movie that ends with you wanting to see much more from the universe it introduces. It's visually stunning, beautifully prescient in its humanist themes (alien-ist too, I suppose?), and while its reach doesn't match its grasp in some respects, you're still left respecting the hell out of the reach alone.

CinemaBlend

The film's most fun aside — the one involving Rihanna as Bubble, the most guileless sex slave in the entire galaxy — epitomizes Besson's singular gift for threading the needle between spectacle and stupidity. For 15 glorious minutes, you're watching exactly the movie that he wanted to make. Like the Fhloston Paradise sequence from ”The Fifth Element," it's a self-contained episode in which cartoon beauty collides with real pathos. And then it ends and we're forced back to Valerian and Laureline, forced to remember that ”The Fifth Element" is such an enduring delight because Ruby Rhod and the Diva Plavalaguna don't feel like a reprieve from its heroes.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/va...nna-cara-delevingne-dane-dehaan-1201853674/2/

The sci-fi epics of Luc Besson (”The Fifth Element," ”Lucy") very often feel like the work of someone who understands certain rules of narrative storytelling but willfully decides they don't matter. He leads the audience through a cavalcade of gorgeous imagery even though the plots don't hold together, certain performances are pitched to an insanely outsized degree, and the pacing goes from exhilarating to just exhausting.

http://www.thewrap.com/valerian-and...eview-luc-besson-dane-dehaan-cara-delevingne/

Derived from a series of French graphic novels that originated in the late 1960s, they're the central figures in ”Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," writer-director Luc Besson's overstuffed CGI sci-fi extravaganza that borrows wildly from, it seems, every other space opera ever made.

http://www.seattletimes.com/enterta...S&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_movies

Still, it would be a mistake to dismiss Besson as someone who lacks soul: There's a ”Frenchiness" to Valerian that marks it as unlike anything Hollywood would dare. Rihanna shows up as a shape-shifting pole dancer with a penchant for poetry, Ethan Hawke is enlisted to play a pimp, and the climax is built around a notion of intergalactic humility (toward immigrants, in fact) that feels decidedly otherworldly. For those risks alone, this is welcome summer fare; if we're going to have space operas, let them sing in the strangest accents possible.

https://www.timeout.com/us/film/valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets

 

[elrechazado]

Sounds like a delightful mess like the fifth Element. I'm in. Always up for Besson madness.

 

[ExVicis]

Y'know I didn't have high hopes when I first saw they were making a movie adaptation of a comic book series like Valerian but I was interested all the same. It seemed like a movie that Guillermo Del Toro should have directed.

I really wonder who was in charge of finding then deciding to make a movie of it. Was it a guy who just wanted a new comic property to make money off of or an actual fan?

 

[Raxus]

Not shocking it isn't very good based on the early reviews.

 

[Stinkles]

These negative reviews are reinforcing my conviction that I will love this.

 

[fastford58]

Ugh. I loved the 5th Element...this is disappointing.

 

[Shaanyboi]

It really is Jupiter Ascending Redux

 

[Mechazawa]

As long as there aren't any psuedo-science Morgan Freeman monologues, I'm still in baby.

 

[Frozenprince]

Oh man, this is going to be glorious. Tempted to see it now.

Dane DeHaan's career has NOT gone the way I thought it was going to go after how fucking astoundingly good he was in Chronicle.

 

[Lights and Waves]

It's kinda funny how you can tell this movie was a flop from the very first trailer.

 

[TrumanBurbank]

Sounds like a delightful mess like the fifth Element. I'm in. Always up for Besson madness.

5th Element is not a mess. Don't be silly.

 

[Grizzlyjin]

I figured it would go down like this. If the sci-fi geek early impressions boil down to "Not the greatest but looks nice," you know it's gonna be the hottest of messes.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Mannnnnnnn i was so hoping this would be good.

Damn.

 

[Sgt. Kabukiman]

These negative reviews are reinforcing my conviction that I will love this.

Yeah, pretty much this.

 

[Frozenprince]

It needed to be average to even maybe potentially pull like, half its budget back.

Honestly I think this is one of those "this wasn't ENTIRELY money laundering but a not insignificant bit of it was" projects.

 

[Thewonandonly]

I figured it would go down like this. If the sci-fi geek early impressions boil down to "Not the greatest but looks nice," you know it's gonna be the hottest of messes.

Ya the trailers make this look breath taking and colorful and I might just have to see it for that exspecialky while high

Spoiler

then when it comes in 4K hdr on LCD or Shrooms

 

[HStallion]

These negative reviews are reinforcing my conviction that I will love this.

Haha I'm glad I'm not the only one. Most of the reviews are speaking to me in a way I don't think they intended. You know I much prefer a mess that goes all out with it and doesn't hold back then a mess that's boring and forgetable.

 

[Discotheque]

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-fifth-element

Not really bothered about the reception towards this as long as reviewers are reminded of fifth element I hope. Bring on the over the top euro sci fi

 

[elrechazado]

Ugh. I loved the 5th Element...this is disappointing.

"In this movie and many like it, the only elements that count are impact, impact, impact and impact. The fifth element is gibberish."

^ Mainstream 5th Element review, and plenty more like it out there
Just saying.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Sounds like a fun time.

 

[Geist-]

Sad, but I'm still going to watch it. Hopefully it's a love it/hate it film.

 

[DecoReturns]

Sounds like a entertaining mess of a film.

Might actually watch it then.

 

[ExVicis]

It's kinda funny how you can tell this movie was a flop from the very first trailer.

Well the trailer suffered from the opposite problem of "It tells you the whole story" everyone keeps yelling about trailers. The trailer was more or less "There's Valerian, there's Laureline, there's a crazy city and it's in space!" and that's pretty much all you get with no real clear picture of what the hell the film was actually going to have in it.

5th Element is not a mess. Don't be silly.

Also this. I'm surprised at the amount of people saying the 5th element was a mess. Say what you want but most of 5th element you could follow what was going on, so it was definitely not a mess.

 

[nocturnalis]

I'll maybe rent it to support Kris Wu.

 

[Alex_Mexico]

How well known in France/Europe is this graphic novel in which the movie is based on, really?

 

[The Elite]

These negative reviews are reinforcing my conviction that I will love this.

I know, right?

 

[Ithil]

My early expectation was "Incredible visuals, inventive action and design work, a total mess of a story and a cast that can't hold it together". A beautiful mess, in short.

It's still my expectation.

 

[Not]

Eh, so it's not boring. Then it already kicks the crap out of Jupiter Ascending. I might see this

 

[EhoaVash]

can't wait to see this, loved 5th element, gonna like this too

shame this comes out same day as Dunkirk which everyone is probably gonna see instead of this movie lol

I would be excited for dunkirk too but man i can't get the bad taste of Nolan's Intersteller out of my mouth

 

[Bornstellar]

These negative reviews are reinforcing my conviction that I will love this.

Pretty much.

 

[kswiston]

Dane DeHaan's career has NOT gone the way I thought it was going to go after how fucking astoundingly good he was in Chronicle.

He should take a hint from Robert Pattinson and stop doing big production films for awhile.

 

[Brian_FETO]

Gonna be lit

 

[Sgt. Kabukiman]

How well known in France/Europe is this graphic novel in which the movie is based on, really?

It's not that popular, honestly. It's well-respected in some circles (for good reason) but it's not really a mainstream thing like Tintin or Asterix.

 

[V1ctIm]

Do t care about the reviews. As soon as I can reserve my IMAX seats I'm going to! The comics are wonderful and I'm sure this will be too. Can't wait!!

 

[Cipher Peon]

Disappointed because I love Dan Dehaan and Cara Delavigne, and the comparisons to The Fifth Element (on my bottom 5 films of all time) make it moreso. I still have a moderate interest in seeing this, though!

Also the blow to A Cure For Wellness is kinda saddening, I haven't seen it yet but that movie looks amazing.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

Rihanna is in this?

 

[More_Badass]

Oh man, this is going to be glorious. Tempted to see it now.

Dane DeHaan's career has NOT gone the way I thought it was going to go after how fucking astoundingly good he was in Chronicle.

He was pretty decent in A Cure For Wellness

 

[overcast]

Sounds like a polarizing flick that is probably worth a viewing just for visuals/insanity of it

 

[Kusagari]

Those reviews make me want to see it more tbh

 

[metsallica]

Argh. Those reviews are all over the place. I was defiant in the face of the Jupiter Ascending reception but critics were beyond right on that turd. I adore TFE but Besson hasn't done anything worthwhile since.

Maybe a silver ticket a couple weeks in... assuming it's still showing anywhere.

 

[whatsinaname]

I am still in. I really liked the extended opening scene they showed before the Spider Man showing at my theatre. My kind of campy sci-fi fun.

 

[old manatee]

It sounds like it's basically a great movie and probably the best movie of the summer most likely if I'm being honest.

 

[Frozenprince]

He was pretty decent in A Cure For Wellness

But that was another critical and commercial failure.

Every major project he's been in has basically been a failure. He needs to take some smaller roles or supporting roles again.

 

[Chamber]

Day 1, tickets already bought.

 

[Meowster]

Still excited to see it. Reminds me of The Fifth Element which is one of my all-time favorite movies.

 

[Speevy]

It really is Jupiter Ascending Redux

Eddie Redmayne redeemed

 

[Random Human]

This looks awesome, and probably bad too, therefore more awesome.

Dane DeHaan's career has NOT gone the way I thought it was going to go after how fucking astoundingly good he was in Chronicle.

He should probably get a new agent, if he hasn't already.

 

[jb1234]

I'll watch it for the pretty visuals and Desplat's score.

 

[Guzim]

Do t care about the reviews. As soon as I can reserve my IMAX seats I'm going to! The comics are wonderful and I'm sure this will be too. Can't wait!!

Is this even going to be playing in IMAX? It comes out the same day as Dunkirk.

 

[theWB27]

This movie is gonna be amazing.