@LachieD said:

I'm not a fan of Luc Besson, to be honest. I find his sensibilities to be very much pre-adolescent, which shows greatly in him films. He simply lacks sense to recognize what choices can alienate the majority of his adult audience. A clever and sensible director should be able to create a compelling and non-cringe worthy experience for audiences above 14 years and above, which appears to escape Luc Besson in majority of his outputs. So I was aware in what I was getting into. I didn't expect a lot. After a pleasant evening with the girlfriend in town I suggested a visit to the cinema, since we didn't see a movie on the big screen probably over 6 months or so. I'm mostly hesitant to go, because what you can usually see in the cinema where I am is the likes of this movies. But it was 3D, seemed light and entertaining, really felt like the least unlucky choice for that evening, we were already nearby, it couldn't hurt much.

Regarding Luc Besson is was pretty much what I expected. Stunning and compelling cinematography and special effects, but overcrowded and often visually confusing, done without much grace, and individual segments too often falling into slapstick and downright silliness. This was expeted.

But what disappoined more is that the sense of scope, space and time usually failed, leading to a feeling of confined, stage-like settings. There are exceptions and excellently executed scenes, which is to be expected given the budget, but this sense of confinement was my predominant impression. And 3D effects were also quite underwhelming. Definitely when compared to the top 3D experiences in the newer history like The Avatar and The Life of Pi.

The main protagonists did a good job, but I felt Dane DeHaan was terribly miscast here, definitely a strange choice for this role. And to be honest, I think he and Cara Delevingne have too similar face features for their relationship not to feel weird. To be honest, first time I saw the trailer, I thought they were playing a brother and sister or some artificial humans from the same "batch" or something.

Many aspects of the plot made little sense in retrospect, like the general inventing the radioactive zone to hide the truth instead of sending K-Trons to "clean up" the area, or instructing K-Trons to kill everyone toward the end, instead of ordering the detonation. But I was mostly annoyed with unconvincing plot devices, like a pre-modern technology race learning to build space ships in a matter of 10-20 years simply by being exposed to certain advance knowledge. We are not even talking here few generations, where I could buy it.

What was a nail in the coffin for me was the presence of progressive, anti-authoritarian message. Since I didn't do my research beforehand I wasnt aware that they were strongly present in the original comic, but here it felt heavy-handed, preachy and to some extent contemptuous of humans. Luc Besson didn't miss a chance to take unnecessary shoots at human federation, obviously built on Western democracy, as actually war-mongering and reckless when treating indigenous people, and then unscrupulouswhen trying to cover it up. I strongly felt the trope of old evil men, resuling from an obsession of men in power/older men being evil and scheming. Robert Bly would have a field day with this sort of story. Read up on him and his ideas on remoteness of fathers resulting in distruss of fathers/older male figures in general if curious. The refuges are shown the the ultimate victims, of course, almost obsessively pacifist and benevolent. The addition of the shapeshifter characters played by Rhianna enforces this message, from a slightly different direction. It's all simply too crude.

Perhaps with time I became less and less able to stomach progressive and far-left leaving ideas present in works of art due some personal realizations and human nature, but I think they can be done with much more grace and much less in your face preaching. They Live comes to mind as a good example. I can disagree with certain message/ideas, but I can still enjoy consuming them if they are presented on a much more intelligent and palatable way, the way Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets failed to do.

What do you think?

Everything about this movie was just horribly stupid. It was way off, it was uninteresting. It was just so bad, I don't even know how to describe it.