Valerian and The City Of A Thousand Planets [Steelbook Blu-ray 4K + 3D + Blu-ray + UV]

A flawed movie for sure but the sheer delight of the opening set up and scenarios is worth it. TBH could have done with some editing but if you can forgive these criticisms then there is a lot to like and be wowed by in this film.

Very futuristic love that great idears animation excellent but its more teenager film.

A film from Luc Besson. Who directed - among other movies - the Fifth Element. This is an adaptation of a French comic strip. Anyone who is familiar with the source material will find the original Valerian story in here, with a few extra bits to bring it up to movie length.Major Valerian [Dane DeHaan] and his partner Sgt Laureline [Cara Delevingne] are law enforcers working for an agency in the far future. A future where humanity has spread into space and mixes with lots and lots of alien races. In the middle of all this is Alpha. An incredibly big space city where humans and lots of these alien species all live together, in many wildly different sections.Valerian has had a strange vision. The answer to which lurks at the heart of Alpha. Can the two of them find the truth? And will Laureline finally fall for his charms?...It's amazing what you can do with computers these days. The Fifth Element had just under two hundred visual effect shots. This has around two thousand. And for visual splendour, scene setting, and creating truly alien worlds and creatures on screen you will never see the like.Unfortunately, beyond that as a movie, it doesn't quite work. For two reasons:1; Plot. The main plot itself is a little thin ultimately, and nothing special. It's also a bit overlong as a film, with several narrative sections - a James Bond style mission before main mission , and a long diversion featuring characters played by Ethan Hawke and Rihanna [who is quite good] which are watchable but divert from the main plot.2: The leads. The characters a tough but upstanding space cop who is a ladies man but really likes his partner and wants her to fall for him. And a tough and serious but with a heart lady cop. Both the two leads initially appear far too young for their parts, and come over like children playing cops and robbers in space.However, Cara Delevingne actually turns out to be a pretty good actress, managing to find all the characteristics that the part does require. She is very confident in front of the character, so her performance does become quite watchable.Dane Dehann, though - a fine character actor in the right quirky role - really does fall completely flat in the part. There's not enough to the character and although he tries hard he does at times look, as mentioned, like a kid trying to be a tough guy. You do get used to him in the end, but ultimately a movie that does require a strong lead performance doesn't really get the right actor for the part.This is a watchable film and not a bad bit of escapism. But ultimately, because of the above faults, whereas it should be an epic that would hook you as much as the original star wars did and leave you wanting more from the characters and setting, it won't live in the mind for nearly as long.The dvd begins with several trailers and an ad, which can be skipped via the next button on the dvd remote.The language and subtitles are as follows:Languages: English..Subtitles: English.It's a good dvd for extras, though, with a production documentary of the kind you used to get. An in depth one looking at the production. It's divided into five parts:Paper Ink flesh bones: origins and characters. Five mins long.To alpha and beyond: production and studio. Eleven mins long.It takes two: Valerian and Laureline's relationship. Six mins long.Denizens of the galaxy: humans and aliens. Fourteen mins long.The full effects: visual effects. Twenty mins long.These can be watched individually or all in a row. And although there is some repetition of material if you do the latter, if you want in depth film documentaries, then these will more than suffice. And they do offer a few perspectives that make you think about the film as well.

When Rihanna isn’t the worst casting choice in your film you have a problem. I know, I know. Every other article/post/whinge about the film that you will have read has gone on and on (and on and on) about the hideous errors in casting Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in the lead roles and I have to agree. They don’t fit the source material (according to the comics he is a square jawed, by-the-book soldier who is a bit of a “shoot now ask questions later type” from the 28th century, she is an 11th century red headed French peasant girl that got swept up in a Doctor Who style timey-wimey companion way), but they also don’t fit their own characters within the grand scheme of things as laid out by the film (which I can accept wanted to, ironically, modernise them a bit) and they sure as hell don’t have any chemistry with each other as a team, romantic or otherwise. To be honest, their acting isn’t awful, they hit their marks and delivered their lines and kept the plot going, but it just didn’t work for me, it was a bit devoid of, well, anything really and that’s all I’m going to say on that matter.Those two aside though, I loved the film! Firstly, it looks GORGEOUS. The special effects were absolutely stunning, the space scenes were epic, the city scenes even moreso. From the sweeping vistas, to the tiniest detail, it just pulled you in and held you rapt to the screen. I loved the concept of the Big Market near the start that you can only see through special goggles, otherwise it looks like you’re standing in the middle of a huge desert and the separate zones on the space station all had their own characteristics, there was nothing generic about them. The story too was actually great fun! Pretty simple as plots go, yes, but swashbuckling action and adventure of the over-the-top kind that you’d find in the Star Wars or Indiana Jones films. However you could tell that it was Besson and not Spielberg behind Valerian, both as screenwriter and director, because the film had Besson’s signature deftness of touch that gave it that special French feel - you'll know what I mean if you've watched other French cinema. The humour had his oblique dry wit, the violence was suitably “graphic novel” in its graphic-ness and the incidental characters and species were utterly wonderful, adding a real richness to the environments. Talking of whom, the cameos were absolutely superb! Yes, even Rihanna who, after her... umm... interesting pole dance, really gave her character a personality that made you want to root for her. Add to that Ethan Hawke out-Depp-ing Johnny Depp as her cowboy/pirate/pimp/club owner, Herbie Hancock scowling through the monitors as the Defense Minister and the legend that is Rutger Hauer as the President of the World (ok World Federation but... yeah, World really) and, lead characters aside, the casting is really cool. And that’s before we get to the magnificence of Clive Owen as the Commander – but I don’t want to spoil the story.So do your best to get past the casting of the leads (it IS possible and didn’t spoil the film at all for me when I stopped worrying about how much better they could have been if they had been somebody else and just went with it), realise that you’re going to get a film that is massively style over substance and just spend a couple of hours with your intellect switched off and your imagination switched on and you’ll love it.

Enjoyed watching the film again, DVD plays perfectly. Thoroughly recommended.