Like The Wachowski's, these are blockbuster directors that regularly go outside of the regular formula of summer films.
I always admire there films, as it still gives me hope of summer films that have a style of original film-making and story-telling.
While Valerian is based on a comic book series, the whole look of it is definitely something I don't see that often in a film with a huge budget.
Sadly unlike The Wachowski's who I feel have made a lot of great films, I have only seen two successes from Besson. That is in the form of Leon and The Fifth Element. The majority of his work, I would call honorable failures.
What gave me hope about his latest project, is that it had an air of The Fifth Element about it.
The majority of the content in the first two acts is rather spectacular. It has many striking visuals and imagery and the pacing of the action was rather exciting. There are plenty of set-pieces in these acts that are visually spectacular, breath-taking, highly imaginative and generally super cool. There were also minor moments of shift in tone that did not quite work and the comedic moments were feeling forced and fell flat.
Sadly, the final act just emphasized those two negatives and the pay-off ended up being generic, weak and had no impact at all.
Firstly, I love the idea of the story that was developed, especially in the opening scene. You can really feel a heavy amount of world-building throughout this film and the amount of detail given to each part. As expected, I definitely saw similarities to The Fifth Element. But I also saw a bit of Avatar, John Carter, Jupiter Ascending, Hellboy and even Star Wars in there as well.
There was a lot of CGI as well as a fair amount of practical sets which was good to see. There were plenty of CGI characters in both major and minor roles that I really liked both in the character itself and their design and I felt they fitted the tone well. The visual effects as well as the impressive costume designs could give this film a healthy amount of Oscar nominations in those categories.
As for the negatives, there are a fair amount of time. Thankfully, most of them just felt like disappointments rather than it just being plain bad.
The final act is certainly the weakest part of the film. After all the build-up, the ending just felt like something out of any other action film, and the very final ending just a big pile of nothing. It was a shame to not have that positive feeling when leaving the cinema.
Another major negative was the casting choices of Dane DeHaan and Cara Delavigne. They just did not work for me. I was already skeptical of their choices. DeHaan has shown great potential. But this film for me proved he cannot lead a blockbuster. For his character being a supposed bad-ass, DeHaan did not show me that. As for Delavigne, being known more for her modelling is enough to doubt the reasoning for her casting. Don't get me wrong, I saw her potential in Suicide Squad, and she did feel more engaging than DeHaan. But sadly they had next to no chemistry, felt memorable or were people I could believe in and support to achieving their goal. I could be cruel and say they were essentially eye-candy. However, I will defend that statement by saying that a lot of their scenes looked to be on green screen. That is always tough for even the most seasoned of actors, so I give them some benefit of the doubt.
Clive Owen felt either wasted or over-qualified for a role that had little screen-time. As seen in the trailers, there is a small role for Rhianna. Her entrance is quite something and is a very pleasing set-piece. Sam Spurell gave a good performance for the type of character he was given. There was a nice surprise appearance from a major actor that effectively played a semi-cameo.
As mentioned before, there are so many moments of comedy and romance that just don't work. You can see them trying. But it just did not feel convincing at all.
Another couple of negatives I want to mention was that I would have liked some backstory of our main characters. And finally, the pacing felt fairly inconsistent. Each scene or set-piece did not seem to flow well into the next one. That bugged me.
While there was certainly a lot too like about it, my overall feeling of it was an almost entertaining sci-fi epic. Yes the visual and practical effects, character designs, world-building and original gadgets involved were top work. Sadly, the main characters and writing were not strong enough to give us something special.
Its heart is in the right place, and there is some fun to be had. It has inconsistent tone shifts at times, highly uneven and the humor on the whole did not work. That is also in relation to the chemistry with DeHaan and Delavigne. If you feel that your main characters aren't gelling well, then the writing will most likely follow suit.
I can see this film begin a cult following and it is certainly Besson's best film since The Fifth Element, which also grew a cult following. Maybe this is the ball park Besson should keep to? However, I would give it at least five more years before Besson makes another feature. I would like to see him give enough time and give us something that remind us how great of a film-maker he can be in todays industry.
Once you've seen this, I would possibly recommend watching/re-watching The Fifth Element to remind how something with a similar scope can be executed with great success, and by the same director.
Rating: 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment