First, to be fair, there are a handful of nice visuals in Valerian. But the movie has just an insanely terrible script and some of the worst acting you’ll ever see in a big budget movie. Cara and Dane are both abortive stars–they just suck.
OK, I can tell you why Valerian basically sucks visually. That’s easy. The universal curse of CGI these days. The phrase these days is, “Looks like a video game.” Not a movie.
Fine, fair enough, but then the question is why T5E looks so fucking awesome. Obviously, that movie used practical effects brilliantly, but that doesn’t explain stuff that is as visually ambitious as the backgrounds and whatnot in Valerian, such as all the flying cars in the city–which looks great. And in 1997! At the time, we didn’t even think about it. “Hey, this movie looks great!” But how did Besson actually do it?
If you can tell me, thanks!
Additional topic: I’m not the only one who has noted that CGI has just gone to the dogs in recent years. Have you -seen- the CGI in like Justice League. Holy fuck, it’s so so soooo bad. Sam Raimi’s floopy-doopy Spider-Man shit from 2002 looks better than that! And Thor Ragnorok, same thing: Hulk looked like ass.
I’ve only heard and read about Valerian but is it possible that Valerian took itself rather too seriously? TFE seemed aware that it was the ravings of a teenage boy and had fun with it. Valerian might have been too eager to be a big movie (rather than a fun one) with the profits that would come of starting a movie franchise.
In that way, I wonder how it compares to Jupiter ascending.
Additionally, Besson might have made been mistaken about what made his early work good, much like George Lucas did when he made the prequels.
I thought Valerian looked fucking amazing. The story was utter shit, and the titular character was the worst miscasting I’ve ever seen in a major motion picture, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the visuals.
Remember that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is based on a comic book series that ran from 1967 to 2010. Luc Besson, who was born in 1959, apparently grew up reading it. Besson’s plots are frequently wild and overblown. Sometimes that works, as in The Fifth Element, and sometimes it doesn’t. Have you seen Lucy? The plot is ridiculous. The only reason it works for some people is that they’re willing to ignore the stupidity of the science in it.
The comic Valerian was very influential. Some people claim that Star Wars took elements from it. Besson probably wanted to show how important he thought the comic was. He should have tried harder to build an interesting plot around the comic. Instead, he just threw together elements from it. The opening sequence where it’s explained how the city of Alpha became the home of thousands of different alien races is great. Then he introduced the two main characters, and the film started to fall apart. They just weren’t good enough actors. The film looks good, but the plot is poor.
T5E is my favorite example of how one should never listen to critics. I loved it, except, of course, for Ruby Rhod.
As for Valerian, it’s my basic complaint with the second Kingsman movie. After it ended, I walked out saying how much I preferred the first one because the effects in the second were so video-gamey.
I tried to watch it last night (quit halfway through after I found myself repeatedly hitting the ‘FF 10 seconds’ button). I agree completely that it suffered much more from casting and plot than visuals.
The visuals in Valerian were unbelievably imaginative, but a bit soulless. There was a lot of character and humour in the alien villains in Fifth Element (the Mangalores) whereas the aliens in Valerian were beautiful but bland. Also the leads were completely free of charisma, and looked like they were 12.
I second that, but only for two reasons; How fast he says “Gemini Croquette Conteeeeeest!” and that weird toilet paper roll hair. Otherwise, I suppose the comic relief is okay. Without him in it it actually would be much different if you think about it.
The visuals were good, they would not have ruined the movie or even hurt it much, but the characters done 100% in CGI don’t look real or substantial. Compare to the Mondochiwans and Mangalores in T5E.
I appreciate all the comments, but somebody please explain how the cityscapes with a zillion flying cars, etc., were done so well in T5E without modern CGI (actually, they probably would have been ruined with modern CGI, but I still don’t know how they were done…).
People do seem determined to make Cara Delivigne a movie star. Has she proven she can act in anything? Or is she just being cast outside her wheelhouse?
Yeah, it can’t be stated enough how terrible casting and the acting of the two leads was in Valerian. “Abysmal” just doesn’t cover it.
And the bullshit about Valerian begging her to marry him over and over was totally in WTF? territory:
• People still get “married” a half-millennium from now?
• People that young (early 20s) get married a half-millennium from now?
• There has been no dating, no physical contact, not even a kiss, and he’s asking to get “married”? In the US or Europe (i.e., places without arranged marriages), I doubt such behavior has been plausible since the 19th century.
Someone acting like that seems less romantic and more mentally disturbed or somehow disabled. Asperger’s, perhaps?
Valerian was pretty bad. The plot and characters were horribly dated and cliched. People who grew up reading the comics (like Besson) might let nostalgia carry them through it. But that wasn’t going to work for people coming to the story fresh (like me).
After seeing the movie, I read up about the comic. Apparently, Delvinge’s character is a 16th century French peasant who helped Valerian out on a mission and ended up becoming a time cop.
I’m still waiting for my Strontium Dog movie: in the mid-22nd century, after {another} an apocalyptic global war, Johnny Alpha is a time-and-space roaming mutant bounty hunter bringing in the dirtbags normal law enforcement can’t handle, while battling anti-mutant prejudice. One of the best characters is his partner Wulf Sternhammer, a giant trash-talking hammer-swinging 9th century Viking Johnny met and saved in a mission in the past and who is now his sworn blood companion: this is Wulf gagging Hitler with his dirty sock, “der Sternhammer silencer”.
However, Luc Besson did a nice job with his adaptation of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, which was fun from start to finish (pterodactyls and Egyptian mummies in 1912 Paris).
I always say, if given a chance, that Luc Besson is the french Michael Bay. They make movies that I should be going gaga over but instead make me wish I really had a rotten tomato to throw at the screen.
The Fifth Element comes close to being a movie I’d watch repeatedly. The stars and special effects almost save it but there are choices that I can only blame on the director that make having seen it in it’s entirety once quite enough. If it was just one film I might look to see if editing was a problem but it’s definitely because it has Besson’s foot prints all over it.
I thought the trailer for Valerian looked stunning but maybe over the top. Maybe it’s like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow where there was more then a little stupid in it and may have been a better movie if they took out all the actors and made it totally animated.
There is an anime for Valerian & Laureline. I’ve only seen a few episodes of it but it was pretty good. I wouldn’t mind seeing the rest.
For me the question is how Besson and Bay movies seem to be set up perfectly for a layup but instead lay a brick. Compare that to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 where they have a dancing baby Groot, which should be the kind of pandering garbage I despise most films for, yet manage to pull it off in a way where I loved every second of it.
