Luc Besson’s latest
eye-popping science fiction bonanza begins on a note rarely touched upon in
recent genre offerings: Hope. During the opening credits, set to David Bowie’s
“Space Oddity”, we get to see Earth’s early days of space exploration give way
to a growing space station that eventually befriends and aligns itself with
other distant planets. It’s a simple yet
effective scene that shows us a vision of the future that is positive and even
a bit moving.
After that sequence,
the film settles into a more familiar, bombastic blockbuster type of
rhythm. We then follow the roughish
space cop Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and his sexy partner Laureline (Cara Delevingne)
as they try to protect an alien critter whose very existence is proof of an
elaborate military cover-up. From then
on, the movie becomes a series of elaborate, sometimes mind-boggling set pieces,
but if it wasn’t for the thoughtful opening scene, the fate of the whole
universe wouldn’t nearly be as meaningful.
DeHaan gives a cool
performance as he has a Keanu Reeves type of swagger. With his surfer dude accent and perfect hair,
he’s a bit of a pretty boy, but he’s always a bit more capable than you'd
expect. He has a lot of chemistry with Delevingne,
who is nothing short of a stone-cold fox in this. She’s also a game trooper and badass action
heroine to boot.
It’s Besson’s dazzling
visuals that are the real star though. There’s
a sequence that takes place in a virtual marketplace that is dizzying since it
takes place in multiple planes of reality, often at the same time. Think a virtual reality version of Amazon.com
on Tatooine with a bit of Blade Runner thrown in for good measure.
While some sequences
are blissfully joyous, others are a bit plodding. It’s definitely a step down from The Fifth Element
(it’s more like The Fourth Element), but if you can’t love a movie that
requires its heroine to stick her head up an alien jellyfish's ass to project her ESP,
there’s probably no hope for you. I know
it’s not perfect or anything, but it’s hard for me to hate any film that
features Ethan Hawke as a space pimp, Rihanna as a shapeshifting stripper, and
Herbie Hancock as the Minister of Space Defense.
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