VALERIAN: THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS

Bruna Carolina

Valerian is an impulsive and inconsequent soldier of human race, while Laureline is controlled and strategic, and these two are partners in a world without barriers, space and time travel are real. This choked movie brings a famous casting and outstanding acting with very realist CGI.

The movie is inspired by the French Graphic Novel “Valérian et Laureline” of 1967, a sci-fi and action story written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mèziéres. This movie was only made because of Luc Besson, its director and producer, who saw in the story an enormous potential, but sadly no film-maker company wanted to follow Besson ideas and the movie turned out to be an indie production. This fact disturbed the movie divulgation, the big companies stifled its release in 2017 and this is why this movie isn’t well known.

Besides its indie production, Luc Besson didn’t get afraid and continued with his idea. This movie has the biggest budges of European indie movies, with $180 millions of dollars spent for an audience above 12 years old. And didn’t get behind of famous movies when we talk about casting. The movie brought Dane DeHaan, who was in two Spider-man movies produced by DC. He plays Valerian very well; his interpretation brings the personality of the original Valerian and his physical traits are perfect. Also, the super model and actress Cara Delevingne, who was in Suicide Squad and Cities of Paper, plays Laureline. The strong and tough stare that Cara does, fitted perfectly with Laureline’s personality. DeHaan and Delevingne have a strong connection and chemistry, which gave to the movie a higher level of acting. Another name featured is Rihanna, the singer and actress, plays Bubbles, a shapeshifter alien and she could offer all the personalities that a shapeshifter must have.

The plot is very complex, only in the final scenes we can fully understand all the plot and subplots developed. Though, right in the beginning we see a peaceful and beautiful species get their planet destroyed by a fallen ship and then we are sent to a mission in progress, where Valerian and Laureline were sent to rescue an important artefact in a neutral world. Soon we see that this artefact belonged to the species that we saw in the beginning, but why the two most important soldiers were sent to rescue it? This is an answer I can’t give.

You may recognize the rhythm and style of the director and productor, Luc Besson, who directed the series of Taken and Transporter, and also The Fifth Element. So, the movie has very defined and clear rhythms. The espionage scenes are smooth and calm, with close capturing on the actors and their expressions, while the actions scenes are dynamic and fast, very well pictured by running scenes with zoom outs that are very iconic in this movie. During these particular scenes, we are presented to new species and places inside the International Space Station and it’s a breathtaking scene.

The cameraman did this by recording the back view of Valerian while he is running and the different biomes and places are passing through him. Also, the zoom out in the presentation of a new place, the cameraman shows the entire outline of a place before they enter in it. These techniques give to the public the sensation of bigness and plurality in the City of a Thousand Planets.

Also, these scenes have a lot of CGI details that could be forgotten, but the theory is that Besson wanted to create a solid base for a second movie. Which he already confirmed begin a desire. The graphic novel on which was inspired has a lot of volumes and content that definitely could make a movie series. Still speaking of CGI details, they are so realistic and believable that we lean towards the screen to see more and it didn’t disappoint.

The colors are a very iconic thing in this movie too. the atmosphere is colorful most of the time to show the plurality of species. Even in the action and tenses scenes the atmosphere is full of color. The movie also brings the joyful personality of Valerian to the atmosphere, so in his scenes we must expect some kind of funny situation where the colors are more vibrant and plural. While Laureline, the brain and the serious person in the duo, presented the espionage and tense scenes, that tend to have less color, but it didn’t mean that the colors aren’t vibrant too.

Besides all the visual delights, the movie also brings questions about the ambition and corruption of human race, the main troublemaker of our kind. So, if you want to see a well-made movie, with action, sci-fi and a little bit of romance that critiques corruption, this is the right choice.