Wednesday, Jul 19, 2017

What’s your ideal planet? Dane DeHaan, the lead star of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, said his is “a planet where there is place for everyone. Where we can all stretch out and be together when we want and be alone when we want.”

The 31-year-old, who plays time-travelling agent Valerian, might as well be describing Alpha, a metropolis in the 28th Century that’s home to thousands of species who have come to live together from across the universe. It’s also the centre of the action in director Luc Besson’s ambitious new sci-fi film, his follow-up to the over-the-top and memorable 1997 flick Fifth Element.

Major Valerian is dispatched to this ‘city’ to investigate an unknown force that’s threatening to destroy the peace in Alpha. He’s joined on this mission by Sergeant Laureline, played by Cara Delevingne. But as the two embark on their journey, they discover that the threat could be much more imminent and destructive than they previously thought.

Valerian is the result of Besson’s lifelong obsession with French comic book series Valerian and Laureline from the ‘60s, which even reportedly inspired the Star Wars universe. The 58-year-old has said he’d waited all these years for the technology to catch up. And he did good.

Right from the opening sequence, featuring Besson’s old friend David Bowie’s Space Oddity, to the first action sequence in a market-place, the French director’s awe-inspiring universe has to be seen to be believed. Rendered beautifully in 3D, his vivid and whacky imagination comes alive frame after frame as we float into space and then watch our heroes fight strange creatures in two dimensions at once. It’s the kind of world only Besson would dare to dream up for the big screen.

But it’s also a world where one could get a little lost, as Besson seems to have done halfway through the film. In the absence of any chemistry between Delevingne and DeHaan, and rather patchy writing credited to Besson, the story begins to meander at the halfway mark. Besson’s bent on showing us more of the fantastic world he’s created, but he hasn’t built an interesting enough plot to take it through.

He throws in some characters along the way to sustain our interest. Clive Owen plays Arun Filitt, Valerian and Laureline’s commander, in an under-utilised role; while music legend Herbie Hancock appears as the Defence Minister. Ethan Hawke is wasted as a pimp while Rihanna fans might be disappointed with her all-too-brief but mesmerising turn as Bubble, a shapeshifting performer who spouts poetry. K-Pop fans are in for a treat, however, as heartthrob Kris Wu gets quite a lot of screen time as Captain Neza.

The contemporary themes are hard to miss: In their quest to find the looming threat, Laureline and Valerien must help find a home for one alien race who have been displaced by war. And they soon find themselves torn between their mission, and doing the right thing. Too bad there’s little charisma there for us to really root for them.

But despite all of that, Valerian is still worth a watch — in 3D and on as big a screen as possible — just for the zany world that Besson has created. Because it’s unlike anything you would have seen before.

Don’t miss it!

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets releases in the UAE on July 20.

David Tusing, tabloid! Editor

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