Luc Besson independently financed and personally funded Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, with a production budget of around $180 million. That figure makes it the most expensive independent film ever made, and the most expensive European one. It buys a lot of universe. It does not buy a story worth the trip.
Trailer, via Rotten Tomatoes Trailers.
Alpha, and the 3,236 Species Inside It
The setup is a genuine idea. In the 28th century, the International Space Station grows until its mass threatens Earth’s gravity. It is moved to deep space and becomes Alpha, a traveling city home to 3,236 species from hundreds of planets. Species converge there over centuries to share knowledge, intelligence and cultures.
The tagline promises heroes without limits. The film hands us Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne as Valerian and Laureline, special operatives of the United Human Federation police. Their assignment from the Minister of Defense: find the dark force at Alpha’s center and safeguard the city.
A Dream of Mül, and a Stolen Pearl
Valerian dreams of Mül, a low-tech humanoid planet where people fish for energy pearls. A huge spacecraft crashes there and causes an extinction event. The planet’s princess, Lihö-Minaa, is stranded outside and dies, but first sends an energy wave carrying a telepathic message.
The pair’s mission is to recover the last Mül converter, a small animal held by black market dealer Igon Siruss. On planet Kirian, in a marketplace in an alternate dimension, Valerian disrupts a meeting between Igon and two hooded figures who also want the converter. They get it. Valerian also steals an energy pearl.
Then the film tells us Mül was destroyed 30 years earlier and the records are classified. That is the whole hook, and the movie sits on it.
Commander Filitt and the Irradiated Center
Aboard Alpha, Commander Arün Filitt, played by Clive Owen, reports that the station’s center is irradiated and highly toxic. Troops sent in have not returned. Radiation levels are rising. Valerian and Laureline are assigned to protect Filitt during an interstation summit on the crisis, and Laureline keeps the converter against his wishes. During the summit, Mül humanoids attack and kidnap Filitt. Valerian chases them into the irradiated zone.
The supporting cast is a list of names doing very little:
- Rihanna as Bubble
- Ethan Hawke as Jolly the Pimp
- Herbie Hancock as Defence Minister
- Kris Wu as Sergeant Neza
- Rutger Hauer as President of the World State Federation
- John Goodman as the voice of Igon Siruss
- Elizabeth Debicki as the voice of Emperor Haban-Limaï
Rihanna and Hawke are the two names the marketing leaned on. Neither is in the film enough to change it.
The Problem Is Valerian and Laureline
Besson wrote and directed, and he financed it himself. The result runs 137 minutes and feels longer. The film is a large co-production between France, the United States, China, Germany, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates.
The real failure is the pair at the center. DeHaan and Delevingne have no chemistry, and the script gives them banter instead of a relationship. Every mission beat depends on us wanting these two to make it. We do not.
The world-building is where the money went, and it shows. Alpha’s marketplaces, its layered species, its alternate-dimension bazaar — that is craft. It is also the only thing in the film that holds up.
What the $180 Million Bought
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets opened in Germany on 20 July 2017 through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures under the Buena Vista International imprint, in the United States on 21 July through STXfilms, in France on 26 July through EuropaCorp Distribution, and in China on 25 August through China Film Group.
That is a wide, expensive release for a film with a hole where its leads should be. Besson built a city of a thousand planets and forgot to put anyone in it worth following.
The published critical score is 5.1/10. That is fair. The imagination is real, the execution is not, and the gap between them is the entire movie.
5.1 of 10.
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