3.25/5
Reviewed July 23, 2017
I like this director, Luc Besson, for his visual style and inspirational vision of world-building (at least visually). Quick review: this movie is a cross between The 5th Element (LB’s movie), Serenity, and Avatar, and has just about as much story depth as two of those (aka not a ton once you get past the characters and visuals). It tried very hard to catch the lightning in a bottle that was the Fifth Element, and even had a similar main theme (that was….not nearly as good as how it was portrayed in that Bruce Willis classic). It’s worth a view in theaters for the visuals alone, but it can be a bit of a fun ride as well.
The Bad:
- Let’s just start right out by saying how utterly generic the plot was. That’s half the reason for the Firefly reference, because it consists of “military fucked up innocent planet, covering their tracks, eliminating traces of that fuck-up while our heroes, not knowing about it, stumble across a thread and unravel it all the way to the top”. It’s a solid if unspectacular plot, and seemingly only used in this movie to justify the insane locations it takes place in.
- The acting. Alright, was anyone else as super underwhelmed by Clive Owen, Dane DeHaan, or the usually reliable Ethan Hawke? It was the women in this movie that shined the brightest, which will be discussed later.
- Does Alpha have force fields? Cause multiple times areas are blown out, walls breached, and no air is sucked out, no liquids spill through (or at least are shown to), and a lot of the damage/action seems ridiculous in a closed environment. Just me?
- The butterfly section. Are there that many creatures randomly wandering around in a mostly derelict portion of Alpha, trying to grab butterflies, that there would be fishermen planning to capture people? Maybe they were fishing for the lizards, but it was a weird sequence.
- Why would Valerian do his best to shoot down the unknown craft carrying the commander IN IT
- On that note, why would the gangster Igon Sirus (played well enough by John Goodman) unleash his uber-monster to recover his property when it clearly just trashes everything? I get revenge, but the thing they have is priceless so…
- The Love theme that is so prevalent and good in The Fifth Element makes a comeback…and falls super flat. Just didn’t fit in, and got forced at the climax.
The Good:
- The acting done by the ladies. Cara Delevingne with an actual role that isn’t dogshit (cough cough Suicide Squad), and she does a really great job IMO as the tough partner of Valerian, Laureline. The actresses (not speaking roles) that also played the people of Mul, especially the princess, were really fun to watch as well.
- The visuals. Cause holy damn, that’s what Luc Besson does well. Huge variety of scenery, worlds, aliens, other dimensional marketplaces, and legit cgi.
- On that note, the worlds themselves were quite fun. You get an ocean world that reeks of Avatar at sea, then you watch it get destroyed. You get an extensive marketplace in another dimension that combines the worst of American-style tourism with a Mos Eisley/Dr. Who (episodes with space bazaars)/Borderlands feel, and the outfits match the shooter video game as well. Then you have Alpha. I LOVED the intro: set to classic David Bowie, it shows in short clips how FRIENDSHIP led to peace between nations on earth, and later the various alien species that ended up creating outposts there.
- Luc Besson likes creating strong female characters. He gives Laureline another one of those, portraying her (I don’t know the books that this is based on) as a competent, capable, EQUAL to the flirty, machismo-spewing Valerian. She pilots the ship, she is a competent fighter, she’s intelligent, fixes objects, stays calm under pressure, rescues Valerian more than he rescues her, and generally is a badass that understands military rule isn’t always right in all circumstances.
- The Mul people building their ship right in the heart of Alpha, among the original capsules.
- Small things, like the hilarious Taken reference and how there is one of the cutest mcguffins in cinema history. And the wacky information duck/imp things. There’s probably more, but it’s a lot to unpack.
I enjoyed watching it, but again, there are a lot of flaws. 3.25/5, probably will still end up in my DVD collection. Edit: got it on Blu-ray
Getting Reel with Mr. Sunshine 