Many directors dream of heading a big scale production that turns into their crowning achievement. Succeeding in telling such an epic story and seeing it transfer on the big screen must be one of the most rewarding experiences ever. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets seems to be just that from the eyes of director Luc Besson.

     Now…whether he achieved his goal is another story. The movie is definitely epic in scale but it doesn’t reach the potential that such a visually captivating and original space adventure should have. I do commend both Besson and the studio for taking such a risk on an unknown property. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good film franchise. It gives you the opportunity to develop a deep world that keeps building on itself and permeates through pop culture, spanning multiple generations. At the same time, they oversaturate the market and studios would much rather place their bets on them than original properties. It’s tough to blame them, considering the nature of their business. They’d rather hedge their bets on something that’s proven. At the same time, movies need to also keep feeling fresh and unique. That desire for originality depends on risks like this.

     Unfortunately, while Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is representative of a positive trend for filmmaking, it falls flat in a lot of respects. Despite the fact that it starts to pick up in the second half, it lacked the excitement and energy that a film like this should have. This is a movie full of world building. Although the set designs have some very cool and interesting elements, the CGI felt somewhat jarring. It didn’t feel quite finished and that turned the imaginative worlds that Besson was trying to convey into something that came off as cartoonish. 

     The script was also a weakness that stood out to me. The dialogue is extremely generic and only serves the purpose of exposition and moving the plot forward. It doesn’t delve into any really meaningful ideas or concepts. The same thing goes for the story. It’s very surface level. Some interesting themes do get brought up towards the end but the movie only introduces them, failing to further explore them and offer up its own opinions and questions on the matter. 

     Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a flawed effort with dashes of fascinating visuals and ideas. Some of the errors the film makes may have been forgiven if the leads were able to charm the audience and engross them into their story. I’ve never loved any of Cara Delevingne or Dane Dehaan’s films. This movie keeps that trend going. They have ok chemistry but their performances come off as forced an stale. They aren’t the exciting and endearing stars that a film like this could really benefit from.

     On its surface, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets seems like it could be the creative and noteworthy blockbuster that truly impresses us. After sitting down and watching it, the film comes off as another effort that’ll have come and gone. It’s very forgettable and that’s unfortunate considering the talent behind it. While Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets might have been a swing and a miss, I hope we can keep seeing directors step up to bat with their own original ideas. 5/10