movie review valerian and the city of a thousand planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Every summer movie season needs at least one out-of-left-field entry that is so cheerfully bonkers it stands as a living rebuke to an industry that churns out noisy and soulless garbage like “ Transformers: The Last Knight .” This year, that film is “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” a deliriously entertaining film that finds writer/director Luc Besson swinging for the fences in his efforts to make a weirdo sci-fi epic for the ages and coming up with a virtual home run derby. It’s a film filled with humor, charm, excitement and so many memorable images that many viewers will find themselves struggling to keep from blinking so as not to miss any of the eye-popping delights crammed into each overstuffed frame.

The film is inspired by Valerian and Laureline , a French comic book series created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres that is said, especially among European comic book buffs, to have influenced the look of any number of films over the years, including “ Star Wars .” The comics also helped to instill an interest in the genre in a ten-year-old Besson, who would eventually go on to employ Mezieres to help design the look of his own elaborate sci-fi epic, “ The Fifth Element .” Besson may be one of the leading players on the international moviemaking scene, but while watching “Valerian,” he has reverted, in the best possible way, to the mindset of a kid helplessly enthralled by the wild plotting, bizarre alien worlds and breathless derring-do on display—albeit a kid who has been able to marshal together armies of cutting-edge visual technicians and a near-$200 million budget (the largest in French film history) to bring it all to life exactly as it played in his head.

Set in the 28th century, the film centers on Valerian ( Dane DeHaan ) and Laureline ( Cara Delevingne ), a pair of special operatives fighting crime throughout the universe. As the story begins, the two are sent off to Big Market, a virtual-reality bazaar whose hordes of vendors can only be seen and approached after donning special equipment, to confiscate an ultra-rare and powerful Mül Converter, an adorable creature capable of reproducing anything that it eats. The cocky Valerian soon finds himself being pursued by any number of creatures while the far more cool and collected Laureline is charged with saving his bacon, presumably not for the first time. 

The twist this time is that, due to a technological malfunction, Valerian is also trapped between two different levels of reality with most of his body in the real world while his arm is stuck in the virtual universe. This may not make a lot of sense in the explanation but the end result on the screen is a hilarious and exciting thing of crackpot beauty that is just one high point of a film filled with them.

After securing the Mül Converter, Valerian and Laureline report to Alpha, a massive floating city that began centuries earlier as the International Space Station and has expanded over the years to serve as a home away from home for aliens from throughout the universe to live together in harmony. Now Alpha’s very existence is being threatened from within, and Valerian and Laureline are charged with getting to the bottom of things before it is too late. The two uncover evidence of a massive government conspiracy to cover up a ghastly mistake. As they try to unravel the scheme before all is lost, the two are separated and have a series of adventures involving a wild collection of creatures, the most memorable of which is a shape-shifting “glampod” played by pop princess Rihanna, who turns up to help Valerian rescue Laureline. 

Besson has long been one of the most stylish filmmakers, but he outdoes himself here. There is not a scene in the film that does not contain a visual worth savoring, whether it is an unusual creature, an extravagant costume or just a throwaway oddity lurking in a corner. (This is one of the rare recent films in which the 3-D option is clearly the way to go.)  At the same time, though, Besson is using his visual skills as a way of telling the story instead of merely serving up bits of gourmet eye candy. Take the extended early sequence set on a bucolic distant planet whose sleek and iridescent inhabitants go about their business before being interrupted by a cataclysmic event. The scene is an initial grabber because of the absolutely gorgeous design of the planet and its inhabitants. But as it goes on, we quickly get a sense of who they are in relation to each other and how their world functions without a single word of dialogue to explain any of it.

Some will complain that the screenplay is little more than a series of action sequences linked together by a story that doesn’t make any sense and absurdly clunky dialogue. While some of the criticisms are valid—there are times when the dialogue sounds as if it underwent one pass too many through translation software programmed by George Lucas —Besson’s narrative is more ambitious than usual this time around and, for all the silliness on display, ultimately touches on real-world concerns such as political corruption and the international refugee crisis in ways that lend real emotional weight to the proceedings. At the same time, “Valerian” is unusually optimistic in its depiction of the future from the charming prologue showing the evolution of Alpha to the sight of its inhabitants living together in peace. At a time when virtually every futuristic film envisions some form of dystopian nightmare, the sunnier take shown here is refreshing.

The only weak element to “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” ironically enough, is Valerian himself. Throughout his career, Besson has never shown much interest in telling stories based around conventionally masculine heroes. Most of his films have centered on tough and resourceful female characters, and when guys have been front-and-center, Besson has subverted their macho natures in some way (such as dressing Bruce Willis in Jean-Paul Gaultier in “The Fifth Element”). Here, Valerian should be brave, bold and resourceful, but as inhabited by DeHaan, he comes across more like a callow kid struggling to emulate the effortless cool of Han Solo. Besson is clearly more interested in the character of Laureline, and viewers will be, too, thanks to Delevingne’s performance. She is funny, convincing in the fight scenes, charismatic as hell, and capable of taking an absurdly melodramatic speech like her climactic oratory on the importance of love and making it work. Thanks to films like “ Wonder Woman ” and the recent “Star Wars” entries, we are in a new age of exemplary female heroes at the multiplex, and Laureline is fully deserving of a place among them.

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is an utter delight and one of the most gorgeous fantasies to hit the screen in recent memory—the kind of film that can take moviegoers logy from the usual array of craptaculars and render them giddy with its pure fun. The question, of course, is whether viewers will be willing to give its weirdo charms a chance. But if you want to come away from a film feeling dazzled instead of simply dazed, this is an absolute must. Besides, it is almost certainly going to become a cult favorite in a few years, so why not get in on the ground floor while you can?

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

• Aymeline Valade as Haban-Limaï
• Clive Owen as Commander Arün Filitt
• Dane DeHaan as Valerian
• Kris Wu as Sergeant Neza
• Elizabeth Debicki as Haban Limaï (voice)
• Rihanna as Bubble
• John Goodman as Igon Siruss (voice)
• Cara Delevingne as Laureline
• Julien Bleitrach as Martapurai #2
• Ethan Hawke as Jolly the Pimp
• Alexandre Desplat

Writer (comic book)

• Jean-Claude Méziéres
• Pierre Christin

Cinematographer

• Thierry Arbogast

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Summary In the 28th century, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are a team of special operatives charged with maintaining order throughout the human territories. Under assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two embark on a mission to the astonishing city of Alpha—an ever-expanding metropolis where species from all over ... Read More

Directed By : Luc Besson

Written By : Pierre Christin, Jean-Claude Mézières, Luc Besson

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

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Dane DeHaan

Major valerian, cara delevingne, sergeant laureline, commander arun filitt, ethan hawke, jolly the pimp, herbie hancock, defence minister, sergeant neza, sam spruell, general okto-bar, alain chabat, bob the pirate, rutger hauer, president of the world state federation, peter hudson, captain crowford, xavier giannoli, captain norton, louis leterrier, captain welcoming mercurys, eric rochant, captain welcoming palm müret, benoît jacquot, captain welcoming arysum, olivier megaton, captain welcoming kco2, gérard krawczyk, captain welcoming martapuraïs, pierre cachia, kortan dahük, david saada, hippolyte burkhart-uhlen, critic reviews.

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Review

A visually stunning, but hollow romp..

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets showcases plenty of cool creatures and ideas for sci-fi fans to savor, but if only the movie's central characters and their relationship were as exciting and interesting as all that impressive eye candy.

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

A dark force threatens Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets. Special operatives Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguar... Read all A dark force threatens Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets. Special operatives Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe. A dark force threatens Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets. Special operatives Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe.

• Pierre Christin
• Jean-Claude Mézières
• Dane DeHaan
• Cara Delevingne
• 1.2K User reviews
• 399 Critic reviews
• 51 Metascore
• 11 nominations

Top cast 99+

• Major Valerian

• Sergeant Laureline

• Commander Arun Filitt

• Jolly the Pimp

• Defence Minister

• Sergeant Neza

• General Okto-Bar

• Bob the Pirate

• President of the World State Federation

• Captain Crowford

• Captain Norton

• Captain Welcoming Mercurys

• Captain Welcoming Palm Müret

• Captain Welcoming Arysum
• (as Benoit Jacquot)

• Captain Welcoming KCO2

• Captain Welcoming Martapuraïs

• Kortan Dahük
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia There are 200 different alien species in this movie. Writer, producer, and director Luc Besson wrote a 600-page book describing in detail all the species. The actors had to read that book prior to filming so they could adjust their performances depending upon the species with whom they were interacting.
• Goofs When Valerian gets the 'Update' when they arrive at Alpha, Alex says that since leaving Earth the station has traveled almost 700 million miles (7.5AU), which, if true, would mean that in 400+ years they hadn't even reached the orbit of Saturn yet (which is 9.5AU from the sun), something that probes can do in under 10 years. A good example is Voyager 1, which in 40 years has traveled over 12 BILLION miles from Earth and is now in interstellar space.

Doghan-Dagui : We know how humans work.

Doghan-Dagui : They're all so predictable.

Sergeant Laureline : Clearly you've never met a woman.

• Crazy credits The subtitle of this film, City of a Thousand Planets, is an amalgam of the titles of the first two Valerian comics, "City of Shifting Waters," and "Empire of a Thousand Planets."
• Connections Featured in Alexiane: A Million on My Soul (2017)
• Soundtracks Space Oddity Written by David Bowie Performed by David Bowie (c) Onward Music (p) Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment Company LLC With courtesy of Fairwood Music/Editer à Paris

User reviews 1.2K

• Nov 25, 2017
• How long is Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? Powered by Alexa
• Will there be a sequel?
• July 21, 2017 (United States)
• United Arab Emirates
• United States
• Valerian y la ciudad de los mil planetas
• Studios de Paris, La Cité du Cinéma, Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France
• TF1 Films Production
• Orange Cinéma Séries
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $177,200,000 (estimated)
• $41,189,488
• $17,007,624
• Jul 23, 2017
• $225,973,340

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 16 minutes
• Dolby Surround 7.1
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital

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Only 3 more star wars lego sets are due out this year (here's when they come out), 10 best mcu quotes from its stars that weren't in the movies or shows, luc besson's valerian is a visually stunning, if overlong, sci-fi romp that's weighed down by an uncharming dynamic between its two leads..

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets takes place in a distant future when human civilization has not only mastered space travel, but helped construct a massive space station, called Alpha, where they live alongside all manner of alien beings. Agents Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) work for the government of Alpha to keep order over the human population of the sprawling space metropolis. The pair are dedicated to their partnership, and especially to each other, mostly refusing to work with anyone else - with certain exceptions made, such as in the case of a shapeshifter named Bubble (Rihanna).

After completing a routine mission - one that nonetheless provides Valerian and Laureline with some setbacks - the agents return to Alpha to report to Commander Arün Filitt (Clive Owen), who tells them that a dark, mysterious force threatens the entirety of the space station. Valerian and Laureline must race against time and travail all the dangers of Alpha in order to get to the bottom of the evil that could wipe out the space station and all the creatures and cultures who also call the City of a Thousand Planets home. However, at the same time, Valerian stumbles across a mysterious culture whose history may or may not be linked to the evil that threatens Alpha. At the end of the day, it's up to Valerian and Laureline to discover the root of the threat against Alpha and protect the City of a Thousand Planets.

Based on the French Valérian and Laureline comics written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières, Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a passion project of his, one that he could finally bring to life because the filmmaking technology had reached a point of doing justice to Alpha and all the creatures who inhabit it. In fact, it was when Besson worked with Mézières on The Fifth Element that the director began considering adapting the comics he'd read growing up into a blockbuster film. Besson wrote and directed Valerian , with his wife Virginie Besson-Silla on board as a fellow producer. Besson's Valerian is a visually stunning, if overlong, sci-fi romp that's weighed down by an uncharming dynamic between its two leads.

There's no doubt that Valerian is the most visually compelling blockbuster of the summer - and perhaps even the whole of 2017. Besson, cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, and visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk work together to bring all manner of alien creatures and locations to life in Valerian , and their hard work pays off because the viewer is able to feel fully immersed in an entirely futuristic and alien world. The action sequences take advantage of Valerian's various settings to bring viewers not just one or two things they haven't seen before, but a whole movie's worth of stunning and exciting action set pieces. From the quiet moments of Laureline dealing and interacting with various creatures on Alpha to Valerian's shootouts with hostile aliens, Besson's latest will surpass even the highest of expectations in terms of visual spectacle.

However, perhaps due to being based on a series of comics, Valerian has a meandering narrative structure that sees its two leads pulled on lengthy side missions with only loose ties to the main plot of the film. Of course, these side missions do introduce a host of colorful characters - Bubble, Jolly (Ethan Hawke), and Bob the pirate (Alain Chabat) - who call Alpha home, and the sequences provide the opportunity for Besson to fully explore the expansive sci-fi world in which Valerian takes place. However, the pacing of Valerian is such that these sequences, albeit fun for a time, end up turning the movie's two hour and change runtime into a slog through loosely connected stories (ones that could feasibly stand on their own in 20-30 minute episodes of a TV series).

Further, these side missions would be more excusable if the plot of Valerian was stronger, but it's a well known story of the lengths to which humans in charge will go to avoid failure - a theme of humanity's ruthlessness that is popular in the science fiction genre. Certainly, it's compelling to see humans contrasted with alien beings who have entirely different values and ways of life - and Valerian's strength lies in bringing those aliens to life - but it's a basic narrative that science fiction has tackled many times before, and Besson's latest doesn't add enough to the story differentiate it from other works. While the side missions that Valerian and Laureline go on may have been included in the film to give it a fresh narrative, they wind up only thinly concealing a well known story and weighing the film down instead.

Still, this theme is contrasted with one of love and trust, though it's an incredibly heavy handed lesson, and one mostly demonstrated through Valerian and Laureline's relationship. They're a typical stock couple in that Valerian is a consummate bachelor who's slept with a number of women, while Laureline is his hard-as-nails partner who refuses to be won over by his charm (but eventually is anyway). However, this trope is dated at best and sexist at worst; despite the efforts of DeHaan and Delevingne, though the film and script attempt to portray Valerian and Laureline as charmingly winsome, their dynamic is clunky and the opposite of romantic. Perhaps different leads would have been able to pull off more compelling chemistry between Valerian's two lead characters, but the script doesn't do DeHaan or Delevingne any favors with trite monologues on love and playful banter we've all heard plenty of times before.

All in all, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets isn't the full package of a summer blockbuster, but what it lacks in truly compelling characters and fresh story it makes up for with stunning visual spectacle. It will no doubt be a must-see for fans of  Valérian and Laureline and Besson himself, especially those that were introduced to the visionary director through The Fifth Element - Valerian is most certainly a spiritual follow-up to The Fifth Element for Besson. And, if there's one movie on which to splurge for IMAX or 3D this summer, Valerian is it. But, while the visuals of Valerian may be groundbreaking, the other aspects of the film come together for an only halfway decent sci-fi adventure.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets  is now playing in U.S. theaters. It runs 137 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action, suggestive material and brief language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Luc Besson's big-budget space opera Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets stars Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline, two officers from the United Human Federation's police force in the distant future. When Valerian receives a telepathic message from an unknown alien, the pair find themselves uncovering corruption and conspiracy from within the Federation itself.

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Reviews

...a nearly 140 minutes slog through poor storytelling, boring characters, laughably bad dialogue, and CGI overload.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 21, 2022

If you’d asked me ... if it would matter that I’d spend a good three-quarters of a movie having no idea what was going on, I would have said: Yes. Yes, that would matter. But that was before I’d seen Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2022

The outcome here is uneven: admirable for its ambition and mindless entertainment value, unable to hold up under close scrutiny, and often dazzlingly beautiful.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 23, 2022

It's a celebration of color and adventure and that's gotta be worth something.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2021

City of a Thousand Planets leaves much to be desired. Yes, it has all the eye-popping visual candy of a typical summer blockbuster but it lacks an original story line.

Full Review | Aug 25, 2021

The visuals are amazing, but the witless banter recalls Katherine Heigl and Gerald Butler far more than it stirs memories of Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2021

Cara Delevingne and Rihanna cannot save Luc Besson's vacuous blockbuster.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 23, 2021

There are a few amusing sci-fi concoctions running around, but they're savagely humbled by the dreadful conversations and lackluster love banter.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Dec 5, 2020

DeHaan and Delevingne have zero chemistry.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 26, 2020

Though Luc Besson's usual failings have been amplified by his ambition, that ambition is worth seeing for the extremity of the spectacle alone.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 25, 2020

It deserves a hand for its go for broke, no holds barred attitude. But sometimes, effort alone is not enough to stand out.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 18, 2020

I think I can sum this film up by saying; The Visuals = Good Bonkers, The Plot = Bad Bonkers. Believe me, it's all bonkers. It is garishly multi-coloured bobbins on an insanely huge scale. It is mostly entertaining and the visual feast is worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Jul 2, 2020

There's no excuse for a movie this insane to be so terminally dull.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 1, 2020

Besson is not the best of storytellers, but ... the style is all-encompassing enough to turn back around and render the story and characters coherent.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2020

I really loved this world.

Full Review | May 12, 2020

It was different.

If you're worn down by grim visions of the future, Valerian is the antidote. It's rambunctious and outrageous, but above all else, it keeps things fun.

The human heroes may receive top billing, but it's the world of Valerian that steals the show.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2020

DeHaan and Delevingne tried their best in their performances. That paid off in places, but the rest of the film just did not hold water.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Oct 10, 2019

The fact that it winds up as empty and cynical as any made-by-a-committee movie is what murders it.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 27, 2019

Film Review: ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’

'Lucy' director Luc Besson returns to the realm of sci-fi, serving up an expansive, expensive adventure whose creativity outweighs its more uneven elements.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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A long time ago in our very own galaxy, Luc Besson dreamed of directing a movie version of “Valérian and Laureline,” a sexy French comic book series featuring a pair of futuristic crime fighters who travel through space and time to uphold the law. Although scholars consider the pulp source material to have been an influence on George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” movie, the equation clearly works the other way around in Besson’s hands, as “ Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ” finds the director doing his best “Star Wars” impression.

It’s a bold goal in a marketplace that hasn’t traditionally been very welcoming to “Star Wars” imitators, but Besson is one of the few living directors with both the ambition and the ability to establish his own rival universe. At a time when “Star Wars” itself has gone corporate (granted, the tight control has yielded some of the series’ best entries), “Valerian” manages to be both cutting-edge and delightfully old-school — the kind of wild, endlessly creative thrill ride that only the director of “Lucy” and “The Fifth Element” could deliver, constructed as an episodic series of missions, scrapes and near-misses featuring a mind-blowing array of environments and stunning computer-generated alien characters.

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Too bad Valerian himself is such a dud. Written as a kind of cocky intergalactic lothario, Valerian ought to be as sexy and charismatic as a young Han Solo, though “Chronicle” star Dane DeHaan — so good in brooding-emo mode — seems incapable of playing the kind of aloof insouciance that made Harrison Ford so irresistible. Despite holding the rank of major, Valerian looks like an overgrown kid, overcompensating via an unconvincingly gruff faux Keanu Reeves accent (with the questionable dye job to match).

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Fortunately, his co-star is cool enough for the both of them: As played by British fashion model Cara Delevingne (downright wooden in last summer’s “Suicide Squad,” but a revelation here: sassy, sarcastic and spontaneous), Laureline holds true to one of Besson’s core beliefs — that nothing’s sexier than an assertive, empowered leading lady. Sure, she needs rescuing at times, but more often than not, she’s the one getting Valerian out of trouble. She’s just a sergeant, but every bit as capable as her commanding officer, and the film is considerably more fun when following her character.

The chemistry between the two may be odd, but they make a good team, constantly trying to prove themselves to one another while each pretending not to care. In their first scene together, Valerian asks Laureline to marry him — a strangely old-fashioned demand, given the 28th-century setting, that plays like a 1950s ploy to seduce the virginal preacher’s daughter. And yet, in so many ways, she seems worldlier than he does, right down to the film’s climactic monologue, in which Laureline lectures Valerian on the meaning of love.

Most of the time, he’s too busy following orders to question what his superiors are asking, but such blind obedience has its bounds, since the plot of “Valerian” concerns a vast military coverup for a cataclysm Besson depicts in the film’s opening minutes: the near-annihilation of a seemingly primitive, yet peaceful species known as Pearls. Tall, slender and scantily dressed, like “Avatar’s” Na’vi, with bald heads and iridescent opaline skin, the Pearl are the most elegant and expressive of the movie’s many computer-generated aliens. Their long limbs give them a graceful, supermodel gait, while their faces are nuanced enough to convey even subtle emotions — testament to just how sophisticated performance capture technology has become, even in someone other than Andy Serkis’ hands.

Such innovations make it possible for Besson to build upon the multiculturalism of the “Star Wars” series in a big way, taking the intermingling of species in the classic cantina scene and expanding it to a vast city named Alpha, where a seemingly infinite number of aliens happily stick to their roles (like a pre-equal-opportunity Zootopia), while humans of all colors run the show (including Herbie Hancock as the city’s Minister of Defense). No doubt, there are dark and sordid “Blade Runner”-esque corners to this hyper-modern megalopolis, but Besson never lingers long enough for us to play more than fly-by tourist as he follows Valerian and Laureline through these various realms.

Generally speaking, Besson works at a fast clip, using dynamic framing and tight editing to convey loads of visual information on the go. The movie is designed to propel us from one cliffhanger to the next, and it’s remarkably effective at doing so without providing a clear notion of what the duo’s mission is supposed to be. Early on, they’re sent to Big Market, a massive virtual-reality bazaar where Valerian manages to retrieve an adorable, ultra-rare creature known as a Mül Converter, which can make copies of anything it ingests (except itself, apparently), from a Jabba the Hutt-like black marketeer voiced by John Goodman.

The movie kicks in during the Big Market sequence, which is where audiences first feel like we’re discovering a truly visionary new environment for the first time — though Besson manages to sustain that effect throughout the film’s time on Alpha. There we meet Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen), the four-star general who’s been using Valerian to help fulfill his own dastardly agenda, and discover a world of eye-popping costumes. Besson’s script may occasionally leave something to be desired, but one can hardly fault the way his characters are dressed, as costume designer Olivier Bériot gives us a sample of the future of fashion (so avant garde that it could take decades for sci-fi to catch up).

In one case — that of a glampod named Bubble (played by Rihanna, when in human form) — a shape-shifting alien actually functions as a kind of elaborate costume, wrapping herself around Valerian so he can infiltrate the dangerous gourmands who plan to eat his darling Laureline. In a nifty trick, Bubble can remove her hat and change outfits entirely, making for the galaxy’s sexiest exotic dance routine.

Even Besson, who convinced the world that Milla Jovovich could act (in “The Fifth Element”), can’t salvage Rihanna’s awkward line readings — unless that’s the effect this sophisticated, Shakespeare-trained glampod is going for. But that’s a small hiccup considering what the director gets from Delevingne: She doesn’t just save Alpha; she saves the movie as well. And though audiences may not be clamoring for a “Valerian” sequel after this, another “Laureline” adventure would be most welcome.

Reviewed at Regal L.A. Live, July 7, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 137 MIN.

• Production: (France) An STX Entertainment (in U.S.), EuropaCorp (in France) release and presentation of a Valerian SAS, TF1 Films Prod. co-production, with the participation of OCS, TF1, in association with Fundamental Films, BNP Paribas, Orange Studio, Universum Film GmbH, Novo Pictures, River Road Entertainment, Belga Films. Producers: Luc Besson, Virginie Besson-Silla.
• Crew: Director: Luc Besson. Screenplay: Besson, based on the comic book series “Valerian and Laureline” by Pierre Christin, Jean-Claude Mézières. Camera (color, widescreen, 3D): Thierry Arbogast. Editor: Julien Rey. Music: Alexandre Desplat.
• With: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu, Rutger Hauer, Sasha Luss, Aymeline Valade.

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Valerian and the city of a thousand planets.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 22 Reviews
• Kids Say 22 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Silly but exuberant sci-fi adventure has fantasy violence.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a sci-fi/action movie based on French comics and directed by Luc Besson. There's plenty of fantasy violence, with futuristic guns, shooting, and fighting, but virtually no blood. An alien character is strapped to a chair and…

Why Age 11+?

Plenty of fantasy violence; lots of futuristic guns (lasers, etc.) and shooting,

A use of "s--t" (partly obscured by noise). Also "pr--k," &q

A character does a sexy dance involving a stripper pole. Kissing. Main character

Any Positive Content?

Concepts of kindness, sharing, and helping the less fortunate are celebrated (as

The characters are rogues and rascals who often turn to violence to solve their

Violence & Scariness

Plenty of fantasy violence; lots of futuristic guns (lasers, etc.) and shooting, with little real impact and virtually no blood. Fight scenes. An alien creature is questioned and tortured, tied up in chair. Digital monsters.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A use of "s--t" (partly obscured by noise). Also "pr--k," "ass," and "damn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A character does a sexy dance involving a stripper pole. Kissing. Main characters in bathing suits. One character asks another to marry him several times. Main character enters a red-light district; other characters flirt with him. A central character is described as a lady-killer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Concepts of kindness, sharing, and helping the less fortunate are celebrated (as opposed to selfishness and lying). Briefly mentions environmental concerns, specifically giving back as much as you take. Addresses the idea of trusting your instincts over your orders. Courage and teamwork are themes.

Positive Role Models

The characters are rogues and rascals who often turn to violence to solve their problems. But they generally try to do the right thing. One main character must decide whether to be loyal to his organization or do the right thing. The main female character constantly challenges her position as the male's sidekick; she firmly believes that she's capable of doing all the hero stuff, too.

Parents need to know that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a sci-fi/action movie based on French comics and directed by Luc Besson . There's plenty of fantasy violence, with futuristic guns, shooting, and fighting, but virtually no blood. An alien character is strapped to a chair and questioned (possibly tortured). The main characters eventually kiss, and one spends the movie asking the other to marry him. There's a red-light district with flirty characters and a woman doing a sexy dance involving a stripper pole. Language includes one possible use of "s--t" (it's partly obscured by noise) and uses of "ass" and "damn." Though the movie is very long and quite silly, it's also bright and dazzling and fun, with messages about courage, teamwork, environmentalism, and helping the less fortunate. And the main female character ( Cara Delevingne ) constantly challenges her position as the male's sidekick. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (22)
• Kids say (22)

Based on 22 parent reviews

Not appropriate for young children

Stripper pole okay for 11+, what's the story.

In VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, it's the 28th century, and agent Valerian ( Dane DeHaan ) has a strange vision about an alien race. He and his intrepid partner, Laureline ( Cara Delevingne ), are sent on a mission to a huge, interdimensional black market to retrieve a miraculous little creature that can multiply matter with its body. Then, returning to Alpha (an interconnected series of ships populated by thousands of races, aka "the city of a thousand planets"), the heroes discover that it's under attack, with a strange radioactive zone spreading from its core. Eventually, Valerian and Laureline discover that there's a connection between Valerian's vision and the threat. Worse, they discover that there's a huge cover-up -- and it goes all the way to the top.

Is It Any Good?

Expensive and impressively, colorfully designed, this sci-fi/action movie is frequently silly and not always very smart, but it has a joyous exuberance and a sheer, dizzy love of the genre. Written and directed by Luc Besson and based on French comics by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets feels directly inspired by Star Wars , as if it were riding a wave of enthusiasm spurred by that film's 1977 release. It's an homage that might have been conceived by Roger Corman , by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus at Cannon Films, or even by a kid in the backyard. The only differences are that it has a $200 million budget, and it's way, way too long.

Some of the movie's images -- such as an immense marketplace in an alternate dimension, or the complex structure of Alpha itself -- are absolutely breathtaking. And Besson's action and chase sequences are bright and snappy, with touches of swaggering humor (helped by Alexandre Desplat's full-blooded, jaunty score). Model-turned-actress Delevingne isn't a great thespian, but her presence has a Barbarella / Galaxina quality, with a bit of Bond girl thrown in. Meanwhile, while DeHaan is fine in introspective indies, he doesn't seem quite right as a Han Solo space-cowboy type. But most quibbles of this kind are easily forgiven, thanks to the movie's overall cheery spirit and positive vibe.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 's violence . Does the fact that it's largely bloodless -- and that it uses futuristic technology -- make it less intense? Why or why not? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

Did you notice any examples of kindness, sharing, and helping others in the movie? Do you think the movie promotes compassion ?

Who are the movie's heroes? What makes them heroes? Are Valerian and Laureline role models ? How do they demonstrate courage ? Teamwork ?

Laureline frequently challenges her position as Valerian's sidekick. Do you agree with her? How would you describe her role? How does she compare to other female characters you've seen in sci-fi/adventure movies?

How does science fiction help tell stories about who we are and what's going on now?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 21, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : November 21, 2017
• Cast : Dane DeHaan , Cara Delevingne , Clive Owen
• Director : Luc Besson
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Pansexual actors, Queer actors
• Studios : STX Entertainment , Lionsgate
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Topics : Adventures , Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 137 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : sci-fi violence and action, suggestive material and brief language
• Last updated : February 23, 2023

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ review

‘valerian and the city of a thousand planets’ looks lovely, but makes no sense.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a case study in what to avoid when trying to establish a sci-fi universe. At first glance, the comic-inspired sci-fi action flick from Lucy director Luc Besson seems to channel his 20-year-old cinematic high-point, The Fifth Element — A shoot first, ask questions later action movie set in a vibrant and enchanting vision of the future. When I took on the task of writing our Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets review, I had hoped I’d be evangelizing the second coming of that classic film. Instead, I found an almost inscrutable movie baked in a hollow, sometimes flashy, world.

The movie follows the eponymous hero Valerian, a major in the universal human military, and his partner (and love interest), Sergeant Laureline, as they investigate a mystery that threatens to destroy Alpha, an enormous space station that plays home to millions of species from across the universe. The threat serves as an entry point for the duo to discover and unravel a massive cover-up spanning space (and time).

The movie goes out of its way to keep the story and the action separated

It also isn’t that important. The mystery on Alpha station is the primary conflict of the movie, but it mostly serves as an ancillary support system for Valerian and Laureline’s aimless wandering. The duo chase conspirators and go on rescue missions to save each other from random alien threats. Their investigation takes long, winding turns across Alpha — facilitating chase scenes in spaceships and submarines, gunfights, and a sequence where Valerian kills off an entire room of gray brutish creatures with a sword. None of their meandering moves the plot along.

Instead of integrating the mystery into these scenes, many of the movie’s action sequences are punctuated by short conversations in Alpha’s human military headquarters, far away, where secondary characters, who you’d normally deem unimportant, discuss how they’re solving the plot’s core problem, step-by-step. The movie seems to go out of its way to keep the story and the action separated: At one point, key information is literally delivered by omniscient duck-billed information brokers, rather than worked into Valerian and Laureline’s story.

Valerian, played by Amazing Spider-Man 2 ’s Dane DeHaan , is technically the star, but he and Laureline ( Suicide Squad ’s Cara Delevigne ) are propped up early on as a sloppy, but effective space cop duo and love affair rolled into one. They have a flirty rapport, punctuated by brief moments of earnest emotion, but neither of these dynamics feel especially genuine. Valerian sounds equally boring whether he’s trying to act earnest and romantic, or witty and charming. Laureline, armed with charming quips and wide-eyed surprise, keeps the “chemistry” between the two of them alive at times, but never gets the opportunity to make her character feel like more than a foil for her co-star.

Valerian ’s coolest designs don’t get the time and attention they deserve

The problem is not exclusive to DeHaan and Delevigne. Despite the film’s strong supporting cast, which includes Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, and John Goodman (in voiceover), every character in this movie sounds like they’re talking at you, the viewer, rather than to whomever they’re supposed to be speaking.

Even if its characters are no fun to listen to, Valerian is very pleasant to look at. Every pore of the movie is filled with creative, highly stylized costumes, creatures, and buildings. Though much of it seems deliberately tame — there are few, if any, intelligent aliens that don’t walk and talk like a human being, for example — there is a steady stream of interesting designs to observe.

Unfortunately, many of  Valerian ’s coolest designs — the underwater alien farmers, walking goldfish bowls, and peacock-human hybrids of Alpha Station — don’t get the time and attention they deserve. A city of a thousand planets is too big to show in its entirety, of course, but instead of weaving these wondrous elements into the film’s most important scenes, Besson uses them as exposition and window dressing.

When Valerian and Laureline arrive at Alpha Station, their ship’s AI simply parades out a few alien species in rapid succession with brief explanations, like a visual encyclopedia. Normally, this kind of sequence would be a way to convey important information you’ll need later in the movie, but none of the alien info makes an appearance later in the film. The explanation is merely an excuse to jam more concept art on screen.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets shows flashes of the fun, excitement, and infatuating creativity you’d hope to see in a modern space opera. (Without giving it away, the film’s first 5-10 minutes, which provide an abridged montage of Alpha Station’s origin, using the film’s interesting art and design to great effect.) Despite these glimpses of compelling lore, most of Valerian feels like a series of concepts, connected by an extremely bare-bones action tale. From afar, its best ideas look as if they’ve been drawn from an imagination running wild — but get closer and there’s no aspect of this movie that really stands out.

If you’d like to see a better movie this weekend, DT recommends ‘Dunkirk’ review , Spider-Man: Homecoming , and War for the Planet of the Apes .

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• DVD & Streaming

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

• Action/Adventure , Drama , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 21, 2017
• Dane DeHaan as Major Valerian; Cara Delevingne as Sergeant Laureline; Clive Owen as Commander Arun Filitt; Rihanna as Bubble; Ethan Hawke as Jolly the Pimp; Herbie Hancock as Defence Minister; Sam Spruell as General Okto-Bar; Rutger Hauer as President of the World State Federation

Home Release Date

• November 21, 2017

Distributor

• EuropaCorp, STX Entertainment

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

Some jobs are easier than others. Just ask Major Valerian, an agent of Earth’s World State Federation in the 28th century: He never gets the easy ones.

Today’s assignment, for instance? Traveling through Exo Space with new partner Sergeant Laureline to the desert tourist planet Kyrian in search of a so-called converter : a small, cute, dragonish creature that, when it eats something, excretes exact duplicates of the same. Lots of ’em. Put in diamonds, and hundreds of shiny, cut carats pop out of the backside of the thing, immediately. It’s not hard to understand why the little beastie—supposedly the last of its kind—is coveted by all manner of not-so-nice intergalactic entities.

To retrieve it, Valerian will need to don special glasses and a boxlike contraption that enables him to enter a parallel dimension while Lauraline directs him back.

Despite being pursued in two different dimensions by ugly aliens and an even uglier dog-like monster, Valerian and Laureline manage to nab the converter … a cute lil’ guy that proves to be of even greater importance than either of them realize.

And that’s just the beginning of their dizzying, frenetic adventure.

Valerian and Laureline soon travel to the floating space colony Alpha—known colloquially as the City of a Thousand Planets—ostensibly to deliver the converter to the man in charge there, Commander Filitt. They’re also tasked with protecting him from hostiles who might want to get their hands (or claws or tentacles or extra-dimensional molecules) on the converter themselves.

But once they arrive on Alpha—a constantly evolving world that’s home to multiple ecosystems, thousands of alien species and some 30 million inhabitants—Valerian and Laureline begin to suspect that the man they report to isn’t telling the truth about … well, something . Something apparently related to the converter, which Laureline decides to hold onto herself.

As they follow clues about what’s really happening, Valerian and Laureline discover a cover-up of planetary proportions. It involves a race of ethereal, human-like aliens known as the Pearl whose home world of Mül was obliterated in a battle some 30 years before. Only a handful remain. And if they’re ever truly going to thrive again as a species, they’re going to need their converter back.

The same little dragon that seemingly everyone on Alpha is frantically looking for.

Positive Elements

Valerian and Laureline are conscientious, faithful agents of the World State Federation. They’re very good at their jobs, and they’ll do just about anything—including risking their lives—to see a mission through to completion. They’re also similarly loyal to each other—so much so, in fact, that Valerian repeatedly pursues a romantic and even marital relationship with Laureline (more on that below). They’re forced to rescue each other frequently. As it becomes more and more obvious that the Commander’s got some dark secrets, the pair confronts him about his misdeeds. (It’s obvious to the audience from the almost the beginning that he’s a bad guy, but characters in the film don’t discover that truth quite so quickly.)

Valerian eventually has to make a choice between following orders and helping the Pearl species make a fresh, new start. Laureline must convince him that the loving decision is to help the alien race, not stick to the rules. “You really don’t know what love is,” she chides him. “Love is more powerful than anything else.” Once he agrees, Laureline tells the Pearls, “We [human beings] are to blame for the loss of your planet. And we’d be honored to help you get it back.”

Mül is depicted as a peaceful, unsullied paradise where the Pearl people live in perfect harmony with one another and their environment. A conflict between humans and another unidentified alien group results in the destruction of Mül. As such, humans are depicted as defilers of the Pearl’s previously perfect and pure civilization.

Elsewhere in the film, Valerian meets female shapeshifter Bubbles (played by singer Rihanna) who helps Valerian in his quest. Along the way, Valerian affirms her value and identity apart from the “work” she’s essentially forced to do. And she heroically helps Valerian rescue Laureline from aliens.

Spiritual Elements

We see a Pearl religious rite (which is performed three times annually, we learn later) in which a young woman feeds the converter a—wait for it—giant pearl, which prompts the creature to secrete many more back into a mystical well. As this happens, we hear a prayer of sorts: “Let us give back to nature that which she gave to us.”

When a Pearl dies, the spirit of that being is dispersed in a wave of energy across the universe and time as it seeks a worthy host to reside in after death. The daughter of the Pearl emperor is killed in a blast early in the film, and she chooses to take refuge inside Valerian, which he does not know at first. When he finally figures it out, he tells Laureline, “The princess, she’s guiding me.” To which Laureline responds, “You’ve had a woman inside you since the beginning?”

The Pearl royal couple is able to see the ghostly form of their daughter within Valerian. One tells him, “[She] chose you to be the guardian of her soul.” Later we also hear that the deceased princess is about to pass on to some final spiritual rest. “Our daughter made a good choice. She can rest in peace now.”

Someone says, “Godspeed.”

Sexual & Romantic Content

Valerian is interested in pursuing a relationship with Laureline. He flirts with her incessantly (at one point even climbing over the top of her while the two sunbathe in a beach simulator). She knows of his promiscuous past (he has what he calls a “playlist” of former lovers, and we see their portraits projected on to multiple walls of a spaceship at one point); she’s not willing to entertain the idea of a relationship until he renounces and destroys his “playlist.”

Eventually, Valerian ups the ante and proposes marriage, with Laureline still feigning some resistance. Eventually she becomes convinced of his love, and the two get “married” (even though they’re in a drifting spaceship awaiting rescue). They kiss passionately at that point (and less so earlier in the film). Laureline wears a bikini top early on.

While pursuing aliens who’ve captured Laureline, Valerian is told he can only find a shapeshifter’s help in what’s essentially Alpha’s red-light district, a place known as Paradise Alley. Multiple scantily clad, alien-but-human-looking prostitutes try to tempt him into spending his money on them.

Bubble’s ne’er-do-well slavemaster Jolly the Pimp tries to sell Valerian on Bubbles’ ability to please him, though Valerian’s not there to be a customer for a sex show. That said, Valerian’s eyes indicate moments of temptation and attraction as he watches Bubbles shapeshift through various very revealing costumes (in actress Rihanna’s human form). A lengthy pole dancing scene is even more revealing, though (skimpy) undergarments are never removed.

The Pearl, for their part, wear almost nothing. While they’re not human, their physique for the most part resembles ours (albeit much thinner). The females often wear tops that just barely cover their breasts.

Violent Content

The action almost never lets up over the course of Valerian ‘s 137-minute run time. Violence is almost as constant, though mostly of the comic book-ish variety. Valerian and Laureline tangle with all manner of aliens, humans, monsters and just about everything else—with bloodless casualties among all of the above. High-tech shootouts, chases and melees all get woven together into a seamless thread of continual, often explosive movement. We see humans and aliens flying, running, jumping, falling through walls, through floors, through space. Several scenes involve epic space battles as well, one of which consumes a planet.

A couple of more intense scenes are worth noting. The Commander captures a Pearl alien. We see the Pearl bloodied and bound to a chair, with the implication that he’s being tortured (though we don’t actually see it). Laureline later pummels the Commander in the face with her fists, hitting him hard perhaps half a dozen times. And the Pearl king and queen watch as their daughter, who’s trapped outside the protection of a spaceship, perishes in an explosive fireball. Lethal robots unload on a group of humans and Pearls, with many bodies being shown on the ground, unmoving, afterward.

In yet another scene, Laureline (who’s been captured) brings an alien king a meal. She wears a huge, plate-like hat. What she doesn’t know is that her head is protruding through it, and the king intends to eat it. (We see him flexing a nasty rounded blade, presumably to pry her skull open.)

Crude or Profane Language

One clear use of “pr–k.” Perhaps a muffled and indistinct s-word. Three uses of “h—,” two of “a–,” and one each of “d–n” and “pervert” (with the latter uttered as a derogatory accusation).

Drug & Alcohol Content

Characters are shown imbibing what are presumably alcoholic (or similar) beverages on several occasions. In one scene, a boat captain gluttonously chugs down a bottle of champagne.

Other Noteworthy Elements

The converter instantly defecates copies of whatever it eats.

Laureline, trying to locate Valerian, puts a large jellyfish on her head (the creature somehow knows where he is). When she comments about putting its mouth over her head, another character quips, “Actually, it’s not his mouth.”

If you’ve seen French director Luc Besson’s 1997 sci-fi extravaganza The Fifth Element , you’ve got an inkling of what to expect here. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (based on a French sci-fi comic Besson adored as a child) feels like that film to the tenth power. Or on steroids. Or whatever amplification/multiplication/acceleration comparison you want to use.

Put simply, it’s a kaleidoscopic cacophony of crashing, contrasting colors. A hurricane of swirling hues. A tesseract of trans-dimensional wonder. A majestic maelstrom of moving images.

Actually, it’s not simple at all, is it?

The film—which reportedly has a whopping 600 more special effects shots that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story —dazzles visually. The story? Well, not so much. At every turn, it’s as if Besson played some kind of dart-board-plot-point game. Following it, let alone trying to understand how its internal continuity coheres, is just about impossible. Even my introduction is just an approximation of a story that takes as many slamming, banging turns as a hyperactive pinball.

Those aesthetics are what make Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets memorable.

But we also need to focus on some content issues here.

For much of the film, I was thinking that Besson had exercised admirable restraint in terms of both language and sexuality. Then we get to Paradise Alley, where Rihanna’s shapeshifting character puts on a burlesque show of rapidly changing outfits—all of which reveal a great deal of her decidedly human form.

Writing for Rolling Stone , movie reviewer Peter Travers said of the scene, “Ethan Hawke plays a pimp named Jolly, an excuse for the director to indulge his taste for kinky intergalactic sex games, though he even seem [sic] timid about getting his freak on here.”

It’s true that Rihanna’s routine stops short of nudity. Still, the presence of what’s essentially a stripper scene quickly puts to rest the idea of packing up the kids and heading out to the multiplex for this one.

On a more philosophical plane, the film takes an unexpected political turn at the end, too. Bubbles asks, “What good is freedom when you’re an illegal immigrant far away from home?” Later on, the Commander’s dialogue paints him as something of a “wall builder” when it comes to protecting humanity from aliens: “Protecting citizens first” is his priority. He says that if we do not, the influx of aliens will “weaken humanity’s economy.”

It’s not hard to see what Besson is doing here with dialogue like that—a subtext that will likely resonate positively with some and rankle others.

In the end, I thought Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was a remarkable visual experience. Besson has delivered another tour de force sci-fi actioner, but one that’s ultimately let down by the inclusion of some content near the end that veers in disappointing and wholly unnecessary directions.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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What happens when you give the guy who made The Fifth Element nearly $200 million to make an absolutely sprawling sci-fi movie based on a French comic book that most people in the mainstream movie going public have never even heard of? You get director Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , which boils down to one of the most visually compelling, absolutely crazy, truly original, kind of ridiculous movies of 2017. Ridiculous or not, the visuals alone make it worth the ride.

Coming from EuropaCorp , Valerian takes place In the 28th century and centers on special operatives Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline ( Cara Delevingne ) who work together to maintain order throughout the human territories, while also trying to navigate their complicated feelings toward one another. Under assignment from the minister of defense, the duo embarks on a mission to Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis where diverse species gather to share knowledge and culture. Things get complicated when a dark force threatens the peaceful but complicated massive space city . Valerian and Laureline wind up in a race against time to identify the menace that also jeopardizes the future of the universe.

To be frank, it would be unfair to say that Luc Besson didn't care about the story in Valerian . He clearly did. This was absolutely a passion project for the man and it shows. It just doesn't show in the actual narrative. Valerian sets up an interesting main story, then spends a lot of the movie sending the main characters on fun side quests that play out like episodes in a serialized sci-fi TV show, or maybe a futuristic video game. Then the plot eventually circles back to the thing that was set up in the first place after a bunch of other stuff happens.

This movie's strength does not lie in telling an all-time great story. Nor does it lie with Dane DeHaan or Cara Delevinge, or really any of the human cast members for that matter. Valerian is what happens when you give Avatar money to a mad visionary who has a truly unwieldy and enormous sandbox to play in. And the result is a visual masterpiece that sort of feels like a cross between Star Trek and Doctor Who , if somebody wanted to spend $185 million on such a thing. And somebody did. That is the strength of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets . That is what it lives and dies by. And it lives, damn it.

There are more amazing creatures , action sequences, colors and visuals than anyone could possibly count. It is truly staggering in that respect. There is some unbelievably inventive, really crafty sci-fi concepts thrown in here as well. Credit where credit is due, Luc Besson had a vision for this thing and he made it happen. It may lack substance in some ways, but this is original and has vision. Even if it misses the mark in some places, it's hard not to love it for just how crazy it is. This is some hardcore sci-fi right here, folks. Not really thinking man's sci-fi, ala Blade Runner . Exactly the opposite.

This is going to be a divisive movie in the years to come. It will be a love hate thing, no doubt. But in an age when so many big movies feel like paint by numbers, or when some movies (looking at you, Transformers ) feel like they just don't care anymore, Valerian clearly cares. This is a visionary filmmaker executing his vision. Even if, at times, it feels more like a ride than a movie, it's clear this is the movie he wanted to make. Let me put it this way: for all of the subtext and attempt at character stuff in a movie like Avatar , which in theory feels like it is a "better" movie and probably will be remembered as such, I'll take Valerian over that movie any day. It's just more fun.

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Review: ‘Valerian’ Is a Rave in Space (but Not Much Fun)

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• July 20, 2017

Much as I hesitate to predict the future in such crazy times, I feel I can say with certainty that 2017 will go down in film history as the Year of the Crazy Dane DeHaan Movie. Already so far we have seen Mr. DeHaan, a 31-year-old actor endowed with poise, intelligence and superb eyebrows, in Gore Verbinski’s highly puzzling “A Cure for Wellness.” If you missed that one, it was more or less “ The Magic Mountain ” with incest and bloodsucking eels.

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” Mr. DeHaan’s latest eyebrow-raiser — speaking of which, it also stars Cara Delevingne, perhaps the supreme superciliary celebrity of our time — is a bit harder to describe. It was written and directed by Luc Besson (“The Fifth Element,” “Arthur and the Invisibles”) a fact that promises greater emphasis on visual panache than on feeling or coherence.

That promise is faithfully kept, but there is so much more going on. To say that “Valerian” is a science-fiction epic doesn’t quite do it justice. Imagine crushing a DVD of “The Phantom Menace” into a fine powder, tossing in some Adderall and Ecstasy and a pinch of cayenne pepper and snorting the resulting mixture while wearing a virtual reality helmet in a Las Vegas karaoke bar. Actually, that sounds like too much fun, but you get the idea.

Mr. DeHaan plays Valerian and Ms. Delevingne plays Laureline, who are not his-and-hers dental hygiene products but rather soldiers in some kind of space army. They are also at least potentially a couple, a fact which authorizes a lot of dialogue that might technically be called “banter” but that seems to have lost its snap after passing through Google translate a few times too many. Anyway, Valerian and Laureline are as cute as a pair of baby salamanders.

Their mission — do I have to do this part? — involves justice for the planet Mül. Before it was destroyed, Mül was a beachy paradise, a perpetual Ibiza on the morning after the best rave ever, populated by hairless lizard supermodels. The key to their bliss is a pocket-size dinosaur that excretes pearls. Only one is left in the universe. Valerian and Laureline are its intrepid pet-sitters.

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Review: valerian and the city of a thousand planets.

The difference between the film and its equally expensive contemporaries is Luc Besson’s playful, childlike naïveté.

Director Luc Besson’s Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Cities is an unabashed exercise in wall-to-wall eye candy, irretrievably drunk on the power of image-making. Within the first five minutes, the question is less whether Besson’s screenplay “works” and more whether the film’s clearly elephantine budget can possibly sustain itself for the next two-plus hours.

Such as it is, the storyline itself barely merits acknowledging: Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are 28th-century space cops, armed with the expertise and tools to jump from one dimension to another as required by their missions—handed down by an inter-species federation, based in a gargantuan spaceship-complex, presided over by Commander Arün Filitt (Clive Owen). Valerian wakes with a start after a nightmare in which he witnesses the destruction of a peaceful oceanic planet, whose inhabitants resemble the Na’vi from James Cameron’s Avatar . From there on out, the screenplay is one long string of chase sequences and near-misses, action-figure-ready creature reveals, and painfully leaden one-liners.

At first glance, this film would appear to mimic any number of other sci-fi extravaganzas, but to call its world formulaic or derivative would be fairly ignorant of how it got here. While George Lucas’s original Star Wars harkened back to 1920s adventure serials and airborne World War II movies, for European comic fans it unmistakably ripped off Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin’s graphic novel Valerian et Laureline , which ran from 1967 up to 2010. Besson remedied the offense somewhat by contracting Mézières to help design his no-less-flamboyant classic The Fifth Element , whose futurist aesthetic owed as much to Mézières as it did to Jean-Paul Gaultier.

If every page in this film’s screenplay is fodder for still more CGI-swollen psychedelia, the sensibility between characters (human or extraterrestrial) is surprisingly antic, somehow undercutting the pomp assumed by an event movie of this scale. Besson is a preternatural showman, and this is one of his signatures: Even his debut feature, Le Dernier Combat , managed to undercut the pressure of its post-atomic-holocaust milieu with Three Stooges -worthy physical comedy and over-the-top sight gags.

Weirdly comparable in their elvin looks, DeHaan and Delevingne seem to opt out of the verisimilitude question, accommodating the pixelated terraforms rendered around them without betraying skepticism about the material. DeHaan at first seems painfully ill-cast, but the plucky, airheaded nature of Valerian’s interactions with Laureline (to whom he proposes in their first scene together, and who inevitably comes around to saying “yes” by the grand finale) effectively goad the audience into playing (as opposed to buying) along. The film makes it impossible to determine whether this “problem” lies with the script or the performances—and that’s a good thing. With so many hundreds of millions of euros hanging in the balance, you’d think this core of un-self-seriousness would imperil the film’s experience, but it somehow instead manages the uncanny feat of humanizing it.

Long before a gooey blue shapeshifter (embodied in her human form, and voiced, by Rihanna) has helped Valerian sneak into a Lewis Carroll-worthy sacrificial alien banquet, viewers will have had ample opportunity to decide whether this is the ride they lined up for. The critical lens to be applied here is obvious: In the crowded marketplace of mega-budget summer tent poles (which have steadily relied on militarism, mass murder, and soft-Randism to sell their tickets for the better part of two decades now), the political symbolism of Besson’s script feels facile and rushed. The androgynous denizens of the coral-reef society obliterated in the first act become refugees against the Federation that employs Valerian and Laureline; that Filitt is, in fact, one of the bad guys will surprise nobody who’s ever seen a film before.

As in The Fifth Element ’s cheesy climax, capital-L love conquers all, but that’s also no spoiler: These invocations of statelessness and genocide are just means to the end of delivering state-of-the-art, soda-slurping entertainment. While Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Cities manages that for a surprisingly brisk 137 minutes, the difference between it and its equally expensive contemporaries is probably Besson’s playful, childlike naïveté.

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Steve Macfarlane is a film curator and writer from Seattle, Washington. His writing has appeared in BOMB , Cinema Scope , Hyperallergic , The Brooklyn Rail , and other publications.

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Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Review

21 Jul 2017

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets

Luc Besson’s latest is something he’s been itching to make for more than 20 years. It’s based on comic strips that fired his imagination as a petit garçon (the Star Wars -influencing Valérian And Laureline , by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières). It’s enabled him to let loose with digital techniques he wished he'd had back on The Fifth Element . And he’s made it on his own terms, free of any studio interference, despite the production’s whopping $180 million budget. In short, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is the most ambitious and colossally risky cinematic endeavour since James Cameron made Avatar .

The result is a breathless, boundless candy-neon pinball-machine theme-park freak-out so lacking in any sense of creative restraint that it makes most other space operas look shabby and timid. If you thought Jupiter Ascending was visually conservative and insufficiently bewildering, or that The Force Awakens would have been improved by a five-minute sequence in which Rihanna pole-dances as a shapeshifting prostitute, then Valerian is the movie for you. With jellyfish that eat memories, aquatic monsters the size of cathedrals and a bazaar so bizarre its exists simultaneously in different dimensions, it’s like Guardians Of The Galaxy might have turned out if James Gunn were a being made of pure mescaline.

So on one level, you have to applaud Besson. This is world-building where not even the sky is the limit and every frame is stuffed with mad-genius invention. It’s the oil on canvas to The Fifth Element ’s doodle on a beer mat. But what’s missing is… well… everything else. Story. Character. Coherence. A sense of pace, even.

Every frame is stuffed with mad-genius invention.

At two-and-a-quarter hours long, Valerian is a marathon run at a sprint. It's exhausting. During those rare, nano-moments where oh-so-pretty leads Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne slow down to talk and flirt, they communicate only in leaden cliché-ese. “My heart will belong to you and no-one else,” blahs Valerian; “You’re scared of commitment,” Laureline drones in response. Besson may be able to marshal the mighty forces of VFX to artfully craft any weirdo monster or spaceship his distended subconscious can squirt out, but he can't create any chemistry between these two. DeHaan, a damn fine actor who's best employed as the wan, moody outsider, is desperately miscast as the supposedly suave, jet-booted hero. Delevingne is given little more to do than pout, glower and punch Clive Owen repeatedly. There’s no sense of depth or history to this couple, no reason to care for either their mission or their ersatz romance.

As for the plot they have to propel, once you strip away all the shiny, greeble-covered cladding, it’s flimsier than a bottle rocket attempting re-entry. There’s a cute alien critter our heroes have to rescue from a place. Then they take it to another place, where aliens who look like supermodels want the cute critter back. That’s pretty much it, and yet somehow you still feel befuddled. Might be something to do with all those bubblegum-firing guns and phosphorescent butterflies and fat-bottomed frog monsters, and that bit where Delevingne wears the galaxy's biggest hat.

The sad truth is, once the giddy novelty of riding dodgems in Besson’s psychedelic space-carnival wanes, it all becomes quite grating (and watching it in eye-sandblasting 3D really doesn’t help). Almost enough to make you want to grab the nearest memory-eating jellyfish.

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets review: "A formulaic plot and underwhelming leads"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

VFX Oscar glory seems inevitable, but a formulaic plot and underwhelming leads are just two of Valerian’s thousand problems.

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A €200 million price tag. Avatar -rivalling visual ambition. Source material oft-regarded as an influence on Star Wars . Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets arrives with interstellar expectations. While it’s no Jupiter Ascending -style stinker, a dispiritingly conventional screenplay and miscast leads prevent this take on French comic-book series Valérian and Laureline from ever truly taking off.

Not that there isn’t innovation. An early sequence in an inter-dimensional Grand Bazaar is brain-breakingly inventive. Before that a 10-minute, near-silent vignette on a pristine Day-Glo beach planet stuns with its simplicity. And then there’s the opener – a bravura history of humanity’s first contact, from present day to the 28th Century. Taken in isolation, Valerian’s first 30 minutes are up there with the best sci-fi in recent memory. The trouble starts when the story kicks in.

Enter Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne), space agents who police the universe by day and flirt awkwardly by night. Their latest mission takes them to Alpha – a planet-sized city home to 8,000 alien species. But the megalopolis has a literal heart of darkness, where some seemingly belligerent force threatens the fabric of the galaxy itself.

Every penny of that record-breaking (and independently financed) budget has been put on screen. If The Fifth Element ’s taxi skyways knocked your orange suspenders off in 1997, Valerian frequently makes Milla Jovovich’s swan dive look like a pre-production animatic. Besson hurtles his camera through a series of awe-inspiring environments, and populates them with increasingly bizarre alien species.

It’s like A New Hope ’s cantina sequence stretched over two hours, with Rihanna making the biggest impression as Bubble – a meek, shapeshifting stripper – alongside a game Ethan Hawke as her pimp, (not so) Jolly. While the world often acts as little more than a backdrop, screen sci-fi doesn’t get much more optically arresting.

And yet, Besson’s rocketship is knocked off-course. Penned by the Euro auteur himself, the ploddingly predictable story, adapted from 1975 volume ‘Ambassador of the Shadows’, falls well short of the significant achievements elsewhere.

The dialogue, meanwhile, feels clunky even when spoken in indecipherable alien tongues. And the leads also disappoint. DeHaan lacks the cocksure swagger of the Han Solo archetype he’s playing up to, while Delevingne is asked to do little more than be chased or deploy an endless series of exasperated reaction shots.

Besson’s world is undoubtedly ripe for further exploration. But he’d be wise to hone his storytelling, and possibly recast.

I'm the Deputy Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the features section of every issue where you can read exclusive, in-depth interviews and see first-look images from the biggest films. I was previously the News Editor at sci-fi, fantasy and horror movie bible SFX. You'll find my name on news, reviews, and features covering every type of movie, from the latest French arthouse release to the biggest Hollywood blockbuster. My work has also featured in Official PlayStation Magazine and Edge.

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‘valerian and the city of a thousand planets’: what the critics are saying.

THR's Todd McCarthy writes, "The Razzies don't need to wait until the end of the year to anoint a winner for 2017," but some critics found more to like about Luc Besson's sci-fi epic.

By Aaron Couch , Lauren Huff July 10, 2017 6:12pm

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Are the reviews for Luc Besson’s Valerian out of this world?

The adaptation of the French comic Valerian et Laureline stars Dane DeHaan as the adventurer Valerian and Cara Delevingne as his partner Laureline , who find themselves on an enormous space station called Alpha, home to thousands of species.

Valerian , which is set to open July 21 opposite Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk , is considered a big gamble for Besson , who has dreamed of making the film for decades, back to his Fifth Element days. (He has maintained the financial risk to his EuropaCorp is minimal , thanks to foreign presales .) Sizzle reels and trailers at conventions around the country over the past year have wowed with their effects, but according to reviews out Monday, the dazzling 3D isn’t enough to win over many critics.

The Hollywood Reporter ‘s Todd McCarthy has a lot to say about the film, but really, the first paragraph of his reivew sort of says it all: “The Razzies don’t need to wait until the end of the year to anoint a winner for 2017. The Golden Turkey Awards should be republished with a new cover. Euro-trash is back, while sci-fi will need to lick its wounds for a while. Dane DeHaan , who has starred in two of the most egregiously bloated misfires of the year with A Cure for Wellness and now this, should do a couple of indie films, while Cara Delevingne needs to learn there is more to acting than smirking and eye-rolling. Rihanna should pretend this never happened. And the Hollywood studio chiefs can breathe easy that, this time, at least, they’ll escape blame for making a giant summer franchise picture that nobody wants to see, since this one’s a French import.”

Things weren’t any kinder at the New York Daily News , where Stephen Whitty writes, “[T]he movie itself is a big, black hole.” He acknowledges Besson has fun with the effects, but, ultimately, “the movie is its own empty rocket ship, piloted by a giddy teenage boy and a crew of two sullen children, slowly creeping its way toward airless oblivion. It never stops for a minute, yet it never goes anywhere.”

David Ehrlich at IndieWire praises the impressive setting of Alpha, but notes that’s far from being able to save the film: “Alpha is a miraculous place, a Wonderland in orbit, but this incredible world is desperately in search of a story worth its sights. Besson’s film is mesmerizing as long as Valerian and Laureline keep digging towards the center, diving through massive computer circuits and stealing parasites off the backs of giant alien scallops in their quest towards the big nothing at the end of the tunnel, but the vividness of this place only underscores the lifelessness of the people leading us through it.”

Entertainment Weekly ‘s Chris Nashawaty didn’t pull any punches in his review, writing, “During the film’s intoxicating first 30 minutes, for example, I couldn’t decide whether what I was watching was brilliantly bonkers or total folly. Then, as the story went on, it came into sharper and sharper focus: Valerian is an epic mess.” Nashawaty praises the film’s “breathtaking” opening montage and first half-hour, but finds DeHaan’s performance lacking, writing his take on Valerian has “all the charisma and energy of a narcoleptic about to nod off.” For Nashawaty, DeHaan poses the biggest problem for the film. “The movie is cast badly. Both DeHaan and — to a lesser degree — Delevingne are all wrong,” he says. And although he gives Besson credit for not playing it safe, Nashawaty writes, “ Valerian and Besson strain so hard to sizzle your retinas and knock you out with the film’s oddness that it eventually becomes numbing — and then just exhausting.”

Not everyone was left cold by the film, however. Cinemablend ‘s Eric Eisenberg finds that, although “some elements just don’t work as they really should” — such as the chemistry between the leads and a somewhat bloated second half — the film is still a “spectacle of the summer.” In short, he writes, “It’s visually stunning, beautifully prescient in its humanist themes (alien-ist too, I suppose?), and while its reach doesn’t match its grasp in some respects, you’re still left respecting the hell out of the reach alone.”

Forbes ‘ Scott Mendelson goes so far as to call the film “a dazzling delight.” Praising the special effects, he compares the feel of Valerian to other sci-fi classics such as Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy . Unlike Eisenberg, Mendelson calls the chemistry between DeHaan and Delevingne “terrific,” although he takes issue with the decision to separate the characters for a large portion of the film. However, he writes, “In an era of recycled and/or nostalgia-driven IP, Valerian is the sort of ‘new to movies’ franchise that deserves to live long and prosper.”

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets movie review: All that glitters isn’t Cara Delevingne

Valerian and the city of a thousand planets movie review: luc besson’s visually dazzling passion project can’t take flight, despite a game cara delevingne, and occasional bhangra music..

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Director - Luc Besson Cast - Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, Rihanna Rating - 1/5

A spectre looms over Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. When everything is said and done, and Luc Besson has stubbed out his last cigarette, forced to vacate the table he has occupied for six hours at a lonely Parisian café where he has been smoking away his sorrows, we will know that his new film is one of those legendary box office bombs – the sort of film that’s written about for years to come, and spoken about only in hushed tones.

Like Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger and The Wachowskis’ Speed Racer, and Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending – they really are having a terrible time – it will go down in the history of cinema as one of the most staggeringly ambitious failures of the new millennium.

But let’s not hold that against the film, shall we?

From its opening couple of scenes, when David Bowie plays over lavish shots of space, it is quite clear that Besson is attempting to recreate the success of his calling card movie, The Fifth Element, and the two Guardians of the Galaxy films. Whether or not this was done retroactively is up for debate.

A thoroughly miscast Dane DeHaan – who is usually better suited to play meek, psychologically hurt misfits, but here, Besson has cast him an intergalactic rake – plays Valerian. A refreshingly-chipper Cara Delevingne plays his partner, Laureline, who, in a sexist turn of events, has been omitted from the film’s title, and spends most of her time shutting down his creepy advances. Together, they are inter-dimensional secret agents trying to get to the bottom of an inter-dimensional smuggling operation which involves pearls pooped by a half-raccoon-half-anteater type creature.

Besson structures the film in such an odd manner that every scene appears to exist in its own, separate movie. The immensely-detailed world-building doesn’t help. As Valerian and Laureline jump from one dimension to another – it could be a seaside paradise, or an underwater kingdom populated by monsters – the empty sights and the sounds become tremendously overwhelming. For a film which routinely forces its characters to spout expositional dialogue – THE Herbie Hancock has a thankless cameo – it’s nearly impossible to follow, and has no memorable characters, even the one who gave it its title.

But for all his visual inventiveness – the glistening alien creatures with long necks, the trio of duck-like comic relief idiots, and a Jabba the Hutt clone who sounds an awful lot like John Goodman – Besson’s film can’t hide the fact that he probably wrote it left-handed and under the influence of some military-grade banned substance.

There is, however, a brief respite from the maddening assault you could look forward to. About an hour into the film, Besson pauses the story and forces you to gawk at a shape-shifting Rihanna prancing about on a stripper’s pole, while a bejewelled cowboy played by Ethan Hawke cackles in the background.

In all honesty, the fact that this movie turned out to be a colossal mess shouldn’t come as too big a surprise. Besson’s recent output, considering especially how rapidly he churns it out, has been rather hit-or-miss. He hasn’t made a particularly enjoyable film since 2010’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, a film towards which I am slightly biased because it had shades of the Adventures of Tintin, a series I am immensely fond of.

He followed it up with a trio of movies that could only be described as Bessonian – the Aung San Suu Kyi biopic, The Lady; the Robert De Niro Mafia family comedy, The Family; and the sci-fi thriller, Lucy, his highest-grossing film yet.

For Valerian, he plundered yet another cult Franco-Belgian comic – Valerian and Laureline. It is a comic book series that I have had the displeasure of reading, and suffice it to say, you need not be familiar with its particularly bizarre vision of the future before watching the film.

The story behind how he got it made promises to be more interesting than the film itself. It’s a miracle, really, how he conned people into giving him $200 million to barf out the fever dream he’s been having for two decades. If the credits are to be believed, he even managed to get a bank involved – BNP Paribas is listed as one of the 15-20 production companies behind Valerian.

Perhaps this could be Valerian and Laureline’s next adventure. They wouldn’t even have to leave Earth, and Dane DeHaan could probably be back home sipping Mai Tais by sundown.

Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar

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8 Sci-Fi Romance Movies That Defy Time And Space (And Will Alter Your Brain Chemistry)

Sometimes love defies time and space — at least it does in science fiction romantic drama films. Here are eight exhilaratingly mystical movies that are a must watch if you enjoy watching love unfold across dystopian realities, parallel universes, alternate timelines, past lives —and even other planets. 

Equals (2015)

 Starring Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart, Equals is set in a dystopian future where citizens are rendered emotionless and robotic workers under the “Collective” that subjects them to an existence where they cannot love, yearn, fear, and feel. When Silas develops “Switched On Syndrome” or SOS which causes him to access the ability to feel shortly after witnessing fellow worker Nia have an emotional reaction, both develop an irresistible attraction and connection to each other and a love that threatens and defies the rules and regulations of the otherwise sterilized existence in their society. 

Passengers (2016)

Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt star in the 2016 movie Passengers , following a group of passengers who seek to flee earth and find a new home on another planet called Homestead II. In their interstellar spacecraft, they are kept in pods to hibernate until they reach the planet, keeping their original youth and age at the time of travel intact. However, when mechanical engineer Jim Preston wakes up ninety years too early and nearly descends into madness out of the isolation he faces as a result, he makes the dangerous decision to wake another fellow passenger, Aurora up. This is a decision that leads to disastrous consequences when the two fall in love and are challenged to navigate Jim’s betrayal and question their existence in the midst of the vast expanse of the universe. 

Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets (2017)

Valerian and Laureline are part of a police federation for the United Human Federation. Their job is to ensure that peace is maintained in the galaxy as Earth expands its relations with other extraterrestrial species in the creation of Alpha, a city that spans thousands of planets and contains millions of species. Throughout their adventures in keeping the peace, their friendship and partnership evolves into romance as Laureline playfully resists Valerian’s attempts to woo her and labels him a player.  The film combines spectacular visuals with a moving plot about the extinction of the planet Mül and its citizens. Randomly, it also features a lengthy and special shape-shifting dance cameo by Rihanna that is sure to be unforgettable for viewers. If you like the idea of romance among different types of aliens, otherworldly beings from diverse planets, and talented dance numbers by your favorite celebrities, this one’s for you. 

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

Librarian Henry has a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel without warning. He meets his future wife Clare (Rachel McAdams) throughout his travels at different ages and manages to give her the times and places of where to find him when she records his visits to her. Now we all know ghosting is terrible enough but imagine your husband was constantly disappearing without warning. Challenged by the constraints of sporadic whims of time and space, the couple struggle to keep their relationship solid as they try to start a family and navigate an unconventional love story that takes a tragic toll on their romance. 

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (2022)

In one reality, you need to pay your taxes and explain to the IRS why karaoke machines count as a vital part of your business expenses. In another, you’re a famous chef, actress, or martial arts master who never married the love of their life but lived out their most successful and highest timeline. Which reality would you choose? Evelyn Wang is tempted by the possibilities of the infinite multiverse as she goes head-to-head with the “dark” alternate version of her daughter, Alpha Joy, who threatens the very existence of it. She also juggles her strained relationship with her husband Waymond who she comes to appreciate as she meets different parallel versions of him, realizing that in every reality, he operates with the kindness and empathy that may very well save the world. Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is a beautiful film about the power of love and its ability to transcend the barriers of time and space. 

Interstellar  (2014)

Joseph Cooper is a former NASA pilot who is forced to abandon his children Cooper and Murph to travel through space and save humanity from extinction in the search for habitable planets on the Endurance spacecraft. Aside from Amelia’s love for physicist Wolf Edmunds which causes her to travel across the galaxy in hopes of seeing him and the planet he may occupy which could be habitable, there is is a brief romance in the film between Murph and Getty, a NASA medical doctor, as well as some possible romantic tension between Amelia and Cooper. Yet the true “love story” throughout the film remains the strong familial bond between Murph and her father Cooper. Cooper is essentially able to travel through different points throughout their history in a four-dimensional tesseract to communicate to Murph the messages needed to save the world, defying time and space to do so. As Amelia eloquently puts it, “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.”

Timer (2009)

Imagine a world where you get a wrist implant that can tell you the exact time you will meet your soulmate. In the science fiction romantic comedy Timer , this is a reality. Oona is an orthodontist in Los Angeles whose implant has a blank timer, indicating that her soulmate does not yet have a timer. Unbeknownst to her, her stepsister Steph tried to introduce her to a man who is actually her true soulmate, Dan, but they have a missed connection when Oona decided not to show up because she is being romanced by another man, and Steph actually begins a flirtation with Dan instead. In a series of serendipitous and chaotic circumstances, Oona struggles to release her expectations of meeting “the one,” only to find her soulmate at the last minute. Talk about good timing. 

Sliding Doors (1998)

This 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow splits into two different timelines. In one timeline, Helen Quilley misses her train in the London Underground after she drops an earring in the elevator and a man picks it up. In another, she boards the train and sits beside the fellow traveler, James, who picked up her earring, and they make a connection. She later arrives home to catch her boyfriend cheating with his ex-girlfriend. In the latter timeline, she leaves her boyfriend and falls in love with James. However, in both timelines, horrific circumstances ensue that threaten her life, and only one of them lead to a somewhat happy ending. Sliding Doors is an epic alternate timeline movie about love and missed connections, how infinite possibilities and life-course trajectories can branch off one another, and how even the most tumultuous detours can lead to happy endings. It illustrates the domino effect of how even the slightest changes in our choices can lead to a complete “timeline shift” in our destinies. 

Read more TV + Movies .

About the author

Shahida Arabi

Shahida is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University. She is a published researcher and author of Power: Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse and Breaking Trauma Bonds with Narcissists and Psychopaths . Her books have been translated into 16+ languages all over the world. Her work has been featured on Salon, HuffPost, Inc., Bustle, Psychology Today, Healthline, VICE, NYDaily News and more. For more inspiration and insight on manipulation and red flags, follow her on Instagram here .

A Book For Those Recovering From Narcissistic Abuse…

Remember— highly manipulative people don’t respond to empathy or compassion. They respond to consequences.

“I rarely write reviews but I’m so impressed by this book , I can’t recommend it enough for anyone who has suffered abuse by a narcissist or is trying to get out of an abusive relationship now. You deserve the best and more… so I strongly encourage you to get this book!” — Michelle Spurling

“This book was life changing. It completely validated everything from my experiences (suicide, anxiety, depression, “neediness”, literally everything). It took every detail from my past struggles and validated and helped make sense of everything. It’s like I was reading my own biography.” — Drew Rod

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