» MOVIE REVIEW

By Charly SHELTON

Comic book movies are all the rage right now. Avengers, Justice League, and even Aquaman have movies coming up. So it stands to reason that plumbing the depths of the medium to find anything yet untouched may pay off. Just slap a few writers on the script, find a new director and, as long as it has a name star attached, it will be good enough to release. (I’m looking at you, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”) This has become the norm. So when a movie like “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” comes along, one expects much the same. But one would be wrong.

Agents Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are special agents assigned to keep peace across the human territories. They have every manner of futuristic gadget to help them do their jobs, stopping alien gangsters and foiling thefts. When a mysterious threat as they’ve never seen before emerges from across space, they go on a whirlwind adventure to save Alpha, the space station metropolis with colonies and inhabitants from a thousand planets. Their mission takes them from Big Market, a bazaar set in another dimension, to the various biomes of Alpha – where dwells every conceivable form of life, both organic and otherwise – and beyond.

Based on a graphic novel series from the 1960s, this is not your average space opera comic book movie. It’s visually arresting in much the same way as is “Avatar” or “The Fifth Element.” The colors are bright, the aliens are realistic and the setting is wholly unique. And if you can roll your tongue up off the theater floor, you’ll find a solid script every step of the way that gives substance to the visuals.

This is the best film I’ve seen a very long time and, honestly, one of the best space operas ever that rivals even “Star Wars.” It doesn’t beat it, but it gives it a real run for its money – it is maybe better than “Jedi.”

The opening sequence is set to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” arguably one of the saddest songs about space travel ever written. – and yet the message of the sequence is so positive. It sets the scene for how we get from Earth of the 21st century to the galactic civilization of the 28th century, when the film takes place. Most modern films show a bleak future, rife with destruction, post-apocalyptic squabbles and eventual progression to a hardscrabble life. To see a version of the future where humans succeed, heal our home planet together and spread into the stars to share knowledge with other alien civilizations makes my heart happy and sets the audience aright for the adventure we’re about to take. And that’s just the first three minutes.

The real beauty of the film comes from a deep appreciation of the source material. This is not just something that a studio threw together to capitalize on the comic book movie movement. This is the lifelong dream project of writer/director Luc Besson. Known for “La Femme Nikita,” “The Professional” and “The Fifth Element,” Besson has been a fan of the Valerian and Laureline graphic novel series by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières since childhood.

“I’ve known the comic since I was 10 years old, and there are 29 albums, so I really know Valerian and Laureline very well,” Besson said of searching for the two leads of the film. “It was more, for me, like I have a picture of who I want and then see who can fit. When I saw [Dane and Cara] the first time, the first hour of conversation, I knew it was them.”

Besson credits James Cameron’s “Avatar” as a major influence, not necessarily in style but in conviction. Cameron has been very open about “Avatar” being his lifetime passion project and, when Besson saw the film, he said that he went home, threw out his script and started over. He knew that it could be better, and he worked on it until it was perfect – in total, over 10 years.

“You know it’s going to be tough, so I started 10 years ago and I started very slowly,” Besson said. “I started with the designers. I selected 10 designers in the mid-2000s, and I made them work for two years in the dark without even knowing the script. They had contact only with me once a week through Skype for a year because I wanted their creativity totally without frontier. I wanted them to come back with the weirdest things. And then I went through more than 6,000 drawings and put together my puzzle.”

All the aspects came together well to produce one jaw-dropping film that is as beautiful in tone and story as it is in production design. My only criticism, which can be forgiven, is the love plot. It seems rushed, as though this may be the last and only chance Besson will have to get these characters on the screen. So he rushed them into deep love because, as a fan, that’s where he wants to see his two favorite characters wind up, and, if they don’t get a sequel, it would be left out. I get it. It’s like rushing to get Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy to hook up, or Daredevil and Elektra, if you don’t think you’ll have a chance to do more films with them.

Beyond that honestly minor note, the film is as close to a perfect movie as I’ve seen in many years. This is definitely not one to miss on the big screen – preferably IMAX – in 3-D. It’s rarely worth the upcharge for Premium Format 3-D, but this one is a must.

Rated PG-13, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars.

  Charly Shelton