A visually stunning, aesthetically creative and utterly bonkers sci-fi epic, if you can get on board with its joyously cheesy sense of fun, this is a psychedelic rollercoaster ride like nothing else you’ll see this year.

Premise: United Human Federation agents Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) have been assigned to retrieve the last of an endangered species from a black-marketeer, but in the process they become involved in a mission which threatens the very existence of “Alpha”, a gigantic space-city where countless alien species live side-by-side.

Review:

I have a real soft-spot for Luc Besson’s 1997 film The Fifth Element, a crazy sci-fi adventure that combined cheesy humour, out-of-this-world visuals, over-the-top characters and mystical nonsense about the power of love. If, like me, you enjoyed The Fifth Element, then the good news is that Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is like The Fifth Element with the craziness turned up to 11.

No one can accuse Luc Besson of lacking imagination or ambition, and certainly Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets suggests that the only limits on visual effects today is a director’s own imagination. In this film, we have otherworldly vistas, a giant space-city the size of a planet (complete with its own underwater habitats), and even a black-market hidden in a parallel dimension that occupies the same space as our reality but which is out of phase with us (so that you can only see it with special googles and only interact with it by going out of phase yourself). There are countless scenes that are unlike anything I can remember seeing on the big screen, including an impressive sequence where Valerian takes a “short-cut” by breaking through between several different habitats within Alpha.

“…the film retains a sense of boundless imagination and optimism for the future…”

In terms of ambition, when Luc Besson made The Fifth Element in 1997 it was most expensive European film that had been made. Now, twenty years later, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is not only the most expensive European film ever made, it is also technically the most expensive independent film ever made, so no one can say that Luc Besson doesn’t swing for the fences.

The film is based on the French sci-fi comicbook series “Valérian and Laureline”, first published in 1967 and said to have influenced much of the sci-fi that followed, including Star Wars. The plot to the film is a loose adaptation of “The Ambassador of Shadows”, the sixth volume in the comicbook series published in 1975, and the film retains a sense of boundless imagination and optimism for the future of humanity that is a million miles away from the gritty and grounded realism of some modern sci-fi. The adventures in the comicbook series were as much about exploration, diversity and environmentalism as they were about monsters and aliens, and those sensibilities have been carried through into the film as well.

“…larger-than-life characters played with a cheesy, tongue-in-cheek tone…”

The film is very much a double-act between Dane DeHaan’s Major Valerian and Cara Delevingne’s Sergeant Laureline, partners who spend as much time flirting and bickering with each other as they do upholding the law. Aside from some admittedly clunky dialogue in their early scenes when their characters are first introduced, much of their bantering works well, and it does convey an easy and longstanding relationship between the two characters. Refreshingly, the film doesn’t bog either character down with convoluted backstories, and leaving aside the clumsily handled introduction scene, the film leaves the details of their histories a mystery.

Dane DeHaan brings a perfect balance of cheesiness and sincerity to Valerian, with his gravelly voice and woman-in-every-port attitude, so that at times he can come across as a bit of a douche, while at other times he’s the classical hero. Cara Delevingne (who, I have to admit, hadn’t particular impressed me with her acting before this film) gives a great performance as Laureline, who’s intellectually Valerian’s superior and whose by-the-book attitude clashes with Valerian’s make-it-up-as-he-goes-along approach. Both are larger-than-life characters played with a cheesy, tongue-in-cheek tone, and both are a lot of fun to spend time with. In particular, Laureline is a well-written female role that is in every sense Valerian’s equal as his partner, and who’s never reduced to the damsel in distress role (which is more than can be said for Rhianna’s brief and under-written appearance as a shapeshifting hooker).

“..a meandering ride through the psychedelic imagination of Luc Besson…”

Ultimately, the plot to this film is almost secondary to the inventiveness of everything around it, and at several points in the film, the characters go off on random side-story adventures that don’t really have anything to do with the main plot or mission. But that’s just the kind of film this is – it’s a meandering ride through the psychedelic imagination of Luc Besson, and if that means the characters have to spend ten minutes going on a side-quest to catch a mind-reading space jellyfish, or they have another diversion along the way involving Ethan Hawke’s bizarre space-pimp, then so be it. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have a plot (it does have an interesting, if a little predictable, plot about an extinct lost civilisation), it’s just that the film’s not simply about getting the story from point A to point B.

Ultimately, the film is unlikely to appeal to everyone, and it’s unapologetically idiosyncratic in terms of its blend of cheesy heroics, surreal alien lifeforms, and unrestrained creativity. But it’s unquestionably unlike anything else you’ll see this year, and what’s not to love about a tongue-in-cheek film that has mind-reading space jellyfish, shapeshifting hookers, fights across parallel dimensions, spaceship chases through a giant space-city, killer robots, man-eating aliens and Clive Owen hamming it up as Valerian and Laureline’s boss?