20/20: #12 Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

[Like the "10 for 10" series but a little longer.  It's my endeavor to clean the backlog slate (with some things watched well over a year ago now) this month with 20 reviews written in 20 minutes (each) over 20 days...
...Well... 10 days with a 20 day break then one post and another day break.  Sigh]

2017, d. Luc Besson - in theatre

It's been said that this is the film Luc Besson has been wanting to make his whole life.  He's been an unabashed fan since childhood of the Valerian and Laureline series of comics (popular in Europe but barely known in North America).  His 1997 somewhat-classic The Fifth Element was in many ways an homage as well as perhaps a proof-of-concept for a Valerian film.  It took him 20 years, but with a massive number of commercially successful productions under his belt (most as producer, but a few genuinely great directorial efforts as well), and technology finally at the state that it is, Valerian could be a reality.

Now you know at this point I'm a big time comic book nerd, and I have to be absolutely honest in saying that not only have I never read a Valerian comic, I've never even heard of them.  It's been said that they are quite influential, even upon Star Wars, which makes me wonder how I've never came across the name or thought to seek them out.  Sci-fi and comics, big space epics, things that influenced Star Wars... those are, like, my things, man. 

It's unfortunate then that Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets doesn't feel like the influencer, but rather the influencee.  It feels at time partly like Star Wars (more the Phantom Menace than any other entry in the series) and Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy and a multitude of other stories which are probably the bastard descendants of Valerian's influence.   It unfortunately never feels innovative.  That's not the worst thing in the world.  Countless films, even really good ones, emerge without innovating strictly by telling a fun story with likeable characters.

So is VatCoaTP a fun story with likeable characters?

Sure.
It's fine.
Really, it's just fine.

The story is kind of classic 1960's-style pulpy sci-fi.  There's space faring and aliens and action and romance, all wrapped around a mystery (that's not really much of a mystery... conspiracy, perhaps?) that plays out engagingly enough over it's two hours but doesn't seem epic enough in scope to really justify the nearly 200 million dollar expense.  The story is more like a mid-level Star Trek adventure, and never feels sweeping or space operatic.

It's visually fantastic, suitably overloaded with details really dazzling the eye.  The design juggles the beautiful with the chaotic on a regular basis, and there's regularly something curious to behold.  Yet, there are still moments where it feels, spartan an low budget.  Hallways which should be bustling with people and creatures are empty and one big set looks exactly like an airplane hanger that's been converted into a film studio...as if the visual effects people forgot to busy it up.  For the film's rather grand big budget, Besson's all too frequent dabbling in modestly budgeted action/adventure films (Taken, Lucy, The Transporter, etc) has given him an eye for shooting economically, not extravagantly.

This is never more true than in the casting, which is probably where I should have just started and stopped when talking about this film.  Seriously, Dane DeHaan?  He's supposed to be the handsome, upright, swarthy, intergalactic playboy leading man?  The guy with the baggy eyes and sickly gaunt face.  I don't want to be too harsh on him because he's a decent actor, but he's not even close to being Han Solo, or Peter Quill, or Captain Kirk (either Shatner or Pine).  He's not unlikeable, but he's not 10% as charming or charismatic as this film absolutely needs him to be.  He's not as tough or handsome, he's not as convincingly resolute in his duty as the character's defining trait of the comics. Cara Delevigne holds up a little better in the charm department but her role as Laureline isn't the equal of Valerian here (though it should be), and so less rests on her shoulders.  The chemistry between the two is adequate but it should be much steamier.  DeHaan just doesn't have "it", and the film's lack of success rests almost solely on that casting decision.

Really. 
Because even with DeHaan in the lead, if another Valerian film was made, I would be there in a heartbeat.  This film isn't an origin story, but rather feels like a part of a larger series of standalone adventures.  A more inviting, attractive, charming actor would make people desperately want to spend more time with Valerian (same with Laureline), but, I have no such desperation.