Valerian was fun, but I really don't think it held together. Great set piece scenes though.

waterworld

Valerian missed the mark; I'm sure it's got great designs (although I also believe it's mostly CGI), but the story of the movie is disjointed (which is a risk when trying to merge multiple storylines into one) and the actors are lifeless.

I really liked Valerian. The story was fine and I expected Cara to be crap but she was actually fine.

I did however very much hated Dane DeHaan's annoying voice.

I've grown to like Valerian over rewatches, but unfortunately it suffers from Besson being a massive Valerian fanboy and trying to stuff everything he possibly could into it... I think he'd have done far better if he'd gotten a more limited budget, or had to produce three of them for the cost of the one he did...

Impossible job as Valérian and Laureline has 22 volumes :)

I know, hence why I think he should have gotten a smaller budget so that he was forced to try to contain himself to one story. Then maybe it'd have done well enough for a sequel as well... It feels like he got into it thinking he had this one shot so he better see how many things he could put in it, and as a result ensured he got only one shot...

The Fifth Element and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets are widely considered to share a thematic and stylistic universe, with similar aesthetic influences. There are shared elements (ha!) and aesthetics, with Valerian even featuring a shop called "Korbens" as an easter egg to The Fifth Element.

Unfortunately the movie doesn't do it for me, the 90s were a better time.

Once CGI became good storytelling and creativity took a backseat in Hollywood.

Perfect CGI and no-grain 4K (?) flattened the feeling.