Watch & Remark: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

I wanted this movie to be amazing. I love science fiction, I love adaptations, I loved everything about the premise and the trailers. I wanted to love this movie, too--but I'm afraid I won't be buying this DVD until it's under ten dollars.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets shows a lot of promise in the trailers. There's solid action, stunning visuals, and a focus on a life-or-death mission rather than a romantic plot. What we got, however, was a huge romantic plot, brilliant visuals, and bad flow. Spoilers below, because I need to talk about some of the flaws in this movie as much as the positives.

Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline are special operatives for the United Human Federation. They are tasked with identifying and defeating an evil force at the center of Alpha, a vast city in space that carries millions of members of thousands of species. However, their mission isn't as clear-cut as it seems, and their enemy is not who it seems. Dealing with aliens whose planet has been destroyed, their own love lives, and a questionable commander, Valerian and Laureline are on the mission of a lifetime.

With an intriguing premise, love story, and really, really cool intro scene, Valerian is an interesting summer blockbuster. The mission is possibly deadly and impossibly challenging, and the protagonists are exceedingly skilled and romantically entangled.

That romantic entanglement I mentioned? It's weird. Laureline is definitely her own woman, but Valerian is overbearing and overconfident. His womanizing ways are made clear, but the romantic subplot that runs for the entire movie is set up when he proposes to Laureline right at the beginning--and she scoffs. Valerian is weird. Laureline is also weird, but awesome.

Major spoiler alert! Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled for minor character death.

THIS CHARACTER DEATH WAS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. The character in question: Rihanna's character, Bubbles, who is basically a white male's representation of sex workers in this future-based world. Her first scene is over-the-top sexual, and then she serves as the innocent-girl fantasy for white men watching this movie. She could have been so much more--and she was, just for a little bit. She helps Valerian save Laureline, and is somehow wounded in the process--we don't even get a great visual of it. We just see the aftermath, as another Star Wars reference (trash compactor, anyone?) and Valerian and Bubbles have a heart-to-heart moment while Laureline stands in the background and Bubbles dies not as herself, but as another sexually charged character. It wasn't fair to her character. She could have done so much more if she hadn't died needlessly.

That character death completely broke the tension of the movie. It slowed down the pace, confused me, and made it seem like Valerian had a deep connection with an alien he had known for less than an hour. That relationship was manipulative and creepy--Valerian trades on his status and promises her freedom from the man who sells her services. After that, the mission doesn't flow as well, and it's a jarring switch from emotional moment to stone-cold mission execution.

There is some diversity in this movie, but it could have been better. Besides the thousands of species of aliens, there are beautiful examples of diversity in skilled government positions. It was really cool to see this variety in a space-military future that could have easily been white-washed. However, that diversity is used badly once or twice. Bubbles refers to herself as an immigrant, and is coerced into helping a federal official with the promise of pardon and an identity card. At times, it seems like the script tries to make a political statement about humans and aliens working together past differences, issues, and politics, but they come across as heavy-handed and overwrought rather than subtle and impactful.

Overall, Valerian has some great characters who try their best to make up for the sub-par plot and overwrought romance. The visuals are epic and beautiful. There are some really cool aliens, an idyllic future alliance between them and humans, and a promising premise of a man-made city floating through space. But it could have been done better.

Again, I really wanted to love this movie. I liked it because it was fun science-fiction with beautiful CGI and characters, but I couldn't love it because it had so many small flaws that brought the quality of the entire movie down. I will be looking for the comic books that this movie was based on, because I sincerely hope they are better than the movie. Until then, let me know what you thought about Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and we'll see where we meet!