When Willy Wonka sang "Pure Imagination," there was a verse that reads "There is no life I know, to compare with pure imagination." Based on the world that is presented here in "Valerian and The City Of A Thousand Planets," I feel like this movie represents that verse from the song. Just look at that title. It screams the fact that it has a lot of creative ideas that it wants to share with you. Put it this way, the opening of the movie; to the tune of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," has enough content to justify having it's own film based entirely on that five minutes sequence. That goes the same with many of the other sequences.
There's a lot that I admire about this movie, and it's mainly because of it's incredible world building; that is mostly thanks to the original comic book source material. Just the sheer outlandish visuals and crazy concepts that Director Luc Besson was able to put on screen is an achievement that needs to be lauded. From the different kinds of life forms from other planets like somebody who can change their image at will, the different technologies and weapons, to the different fantastic locations like a grand market unlike any you've ever seen. Combine all that with awesome set pieces from a caper plot, chase sequences, to feeding a king, and what we've got is a movie that simply have many memorable things to experience.
This movie fills that slot in the imaginative science-fiction fantasy epic category, and I definitely want to see more of this. Despite all my praise for this film, it unfortunately has two major flaws in it. The first flaw would be the script, as it's serviceable at best with a dash of derivatives, and some dialogue that can be described as clunky or cringe-worthy. The second flaw would be the two main leads in Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, who aren't charming enough to carry the movie, don't have strong chemistry together, and just come off as being miscast for the roles that already doesn't have much in terms of great character development.
As great as the rest of the movie is, those two flaws are pretty significant. Maybe not significant enough to ruin the whole experience for me, but enough to keep it from being an instant sci-fi classic. It at least has the elements of being a future cult classic, so there's that. Negativity aside, there's a lot that I really enjoyed with this movie, and would love to see more of it. If anything else, it's convinced me to consider reading the original comic book source material to get my fix.
lovedit ENJOYED IT itsokayitsmehitsterrible
