2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action/violence and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang
Anybody in doubt about the
crucial important of acting chops, need look no further than this misfired
spectacular.
Director/scripter Luc Besson has
helmed a visually opulent adaptation of the famed French sci-fi comic book
series by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières, which enjoyed
a stunning run from 1967 through 2010 (and has been collected in 21 graphic
novels and a short story collection, for anybody wishing to catch up). The
narrative is based mostly on the sixth book, Ambassadors of the Shadows.
The film certainly looks fabulous, thanks to a
worlds-building blend of Hugues Tissandier’s production design, Scott Stokdyk’s
visual effects team, and Avatar-style
motion capture creatures. The core plot is solid, with thoughtful messages
about inclusiveness, environmental concerns, forgiveness and the unintended
consequences of war.
Casting the heroic
spatio-temporal agent Valerian, and his plucky, quick-witted companion
Laureline, should have been a sacred mission on par with the careful selection
of each new James Bond. The title role demands somebody with the grit, smug charm
and hard-charging recklessness of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo or — to borrow from
Besson’s own oeuvre — Bruce Willis’
Korben Dallas, in 1997’s The Fifth
Element.
Besson didn’t even get close this
time.
I’m sure Dane DeHaan is a nice
fellow: kind to animals and dutiful about texting his mother at least once a
day. But he’s no actor. He’s stiff as a board throughout this lengthy disappointment,
has no facility with dialog, and couldn’t deliver a quip if his life depended
on it. He’s a veritable black hole, sucking all life from the film.
Most damning, because he is so clumsy with the flirty banter that
typifies the relationship between Valerian and Laureline, DeHaan turns his
character into an obnoxious pain in the ass. He doesn’t merely drag the film
down; he brings it to a grinding halt. I kept hoping that one of the oversize
beasties in this colorful saga would swallow him whole.
DeHaan may be remembered as the
beleaguered young protagonist in the loathsome A Cure for Wellness, unleashed earlier this year. He was quite
bad in that as well, but it mattered less, because the film — as a whole — was
such an unmitigated disaster.
Valerian had the potential for greatness. Several
problems prevented that, and DeHaan’s laughably awful performance tops the
list.
Cara Delevingne fares somewhat better
as Laureline; she blends athletic grace with sass and cool-headed intelligence.
Frankly, Laureline should be in charge of this adventure; she’s far more
capable than DeHaan’s Valerian, their respective military ranks
notwithstanding. Unfortunately, Delevingne is undone by another of this film’s failings:
Besson’s relentlessly, insufferably stupid dialog.
Valerian and Laureline are introduced
as veteran special operatives charged with maintaining order throughout the
human territories, in space and on planets. They therefore should display competence
and experience, while projecting an all-important attitude of command
authority.
Instead, they squabble like
mutually irritated high school lovers: not just when alone with each other, but
also in the field, surrounded by far more military-crisp comrades who
undoubtedly share our own opinion of this so-called elite duo: They’re embarrassing.
Matters aren’t helped by the fact
that DeHaan and Delevingne share zero chemistry. (Is it possible to have
negative chemistry?) That just makes Besson’s childish efforts at sex-tinged repartee
even more wincingly maladroit.
All that aside, to the story:
A clever prologue shows how Earth’s
fledgling space station — initially a means of détente solely between American
and Russian astronauts — grows, over time, with the arrival of visitors not
only from Earth’s many nations, but from planets throughout the universe. The
station, now christened Alpha, swells to include massive environments designed
to grant comfort for all manner of inhabitants.
Ultimately, this ever-expanding
metropolis proves too large for Earth’s orbit. It takes off into space,
becoming an inspirational jewel of cooperation, where — we’re now in the 28th
century — species from all over the universe have converged for centuries, to
share knowledge and cultures with each other.
Elsewhere...
An idyllic interlude spent with
the peaceful inhabitants of the gorgeous planet Mül comes to a horrifying end
when the sky is rent asunder by the damaged spaceships of two warring factions:
a catastrophe that claims the life, among countless others, of a young
princess. In her dying moment, she projects her being — her soul, her memories
— in a mental supernova that arrives as a shocking dream in Valerian’s mind.
He doesn’t have time to think
about it. He and Laureline have just been sent to the desert planet Kirian,
where they’re to infiltrate the inter-dimensional “Big Market,” perceivable
only by visitors who don special headgear. Intel has revealed that a hulking
Khodar’Khan black marketeer (voiced by John Goodman) has gained possession of
the last surviving Mül “Converter”: a tiny creature with the miraculous power
to replicate — in large quantities — anything that it ingests. Valerian and
Laureline are ordered to retrieve the little beastie.
Ah, but they’re not the only ones
after the Converter. The subsequent skirmish, a thrilling bit of fast-paced suspense,
is a nifty preamble to even better action sequences to come.
Our heroes ultimately succeed,
bringing the adorable critter to Alpha, where they report to Human Sector
Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen, deliciously condescending). In the grand
tradition of classic space operas, he radiates
“villain”; it couldn’t be more obvious if the word were tattooed on his
forehead. Laureline doesn’t trust him, particularly since Filitt surrounds
himself with huge mechanized soldiers dubbed K-Trons.
Again, though, there’s no time to
contemplate Filitt’s behavior. The more pressing problem is a “red zone” at the
heart of Alpha, which seems to be expanding; military squads sent to
investigate have ... disappeared. Matters rapidly go awry, with Valerian and
Laureline in the midst of considerable peril, and with all sorts of questions:
Are these events — the red zone, the tiny Converter, Filitt’s behavior,
Valerian’s dreams, the long-ago catastrophe on Mül — somehow connected?
Some answers could be provided by
the three Doghan Daguis, a species of multi-lingual information brokers who
finish each other’s sentences, and win the prize as this film’s funniest and
most captivating ETs.
Subsequent adventures send our
two heroes throughout Alpha’s various regions, from the underwater realm of the
Mylea jellyfish and 300-ton Bromosaur, to the hedonistic delights of Paradise
Alley, to the forbidden realm of the blobby Boulan Bathors.
The latter, in particular, brings
up another problem: this film’s self-indulgent 137-minute length. That’s at
least half an hour too long, due to an entirely superfluous chapter — dealing
with Paradise Alley and the Boulan Bathor — that Besson seems to have inserted
solely to grant gratuitous exposure to co-star Rihanna, as the shape-changing
Bubble.
She dances. She makes goo-goo
eyes at Valerian. She shrinks in fear from her “handler,” Jolly the Pimp (an
equally pointless cameo role tossed to Ethan Hawke). This whole time-wasting
sequence does nothing to advance the plot, and could be extracted without being
missed.
Granted, such episodic diversions
would be entertaining, if DeHaan’s Valerian were more likable to begin with.
But he isn’t, and I could sense the rolling eyes and impatiently drumming
fingers amid Wednesday evening’s preview audience.
While on the subject of
perplexing cameos, Valerian and Laureline occasionally report via tele-screen
to the Minister of Defense, a role given to no less than Grammy Award-winning
jazz musician/composer Herbie Hancock. (To be fair, he makes an appropriately authoritative
Minister of Defense.)
Rutger Hauer appears even more
briefly, as President of the World State Federation; he gets to make an
announcement that runs perhaps 15 seconds. And fan-cred goes to Sand Van Roy,
who pops up in Paradise Alley — blink and you’ll miss her — as a “Jessica
Rabbit creature.”
And that, ultimately, is what
ails this film the most: It’s rather a mess. Despite a deeply moving core
story, and despite the richly imaginative — and superbly realized — settings,
it’s almost impossible to engage emotionally with these characters, or their rather
random actions. Besson’s script is simply too dumb.
It’s as if he bought the world’s
most expensive parchment, had every manuscript sheet painstakingly hand-painted
by monks ... and then let a 2-year-old scribble each page with crayon.
All
of which is a shame, because of the obvious potential and squandered
opportunity. Christin and Mézières would have been served far better by a
miniseries narrative that spent more time in the varied thousand environments,
perhaps propelled by some overarching conspiracy, and (much) less time enduring
Valerian’s insufferable behavior.
1 comment:
If I could have only read this before I wasted 137 minutes of my life. It's pretty to look at but it's like Dane got all his acting chops from Star Wars episodes 1-3, focusing on the performances of the character Anakin Skywalker. I think this could be summed up as a hipster spacecapade trying to communicate with a millennial audience and it comes off as pretentious and uncomfortable as it sounds.
J. Jack
jayjack19751@gmail.com
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