Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

[JEDI]

downloading a cam version probably make the movie suck even more

thus im probably going to use my free amc black ticket to see the gorgeous sfx in all its glory.

 

[Thebobo]

WTF is this country coming to? have we lost all humanity!? Valerian is finally coming out on the 21st but for some stupid reason my local Regal theaters won't be showing it. W.T.F. Looks like only AMC (Ugh) theaters and they are miles away (ughx2). I don't go to see movies or get out often but this one I wanted to see in all its large screen glory, I was really looking forward to this. I also noticed my trusty theater has reserved seating goddamn it what ever happened to you go early and endure the 20 minutes of pathetic commercials to get good seats. Mother fracking regal sucks!!! GET OFF MY LAWN!

/rage off

 

[JEDI]

WTF is this country coming to? have we lost all humanity!? Valerian is finally coming out on the 21st but for some stupid reason my local Regal theaters won't be showing it. W.T.F. Looks like only AMC (Ugh) theaters and they are miles away (ughx2). I don't go to see movies or get out often but this one I wanted to see in all its large screen glory, I was really looking forward to this. I also noticed my trusty theater has reserved seating goddamn it what ever happened to you go early and endure the 20 minutes of pathetic commercials to get good seats. Mother fracking regal sucks!!! GET OFF MY LAWN!

/rage off

on regals site, I can only see movies to next week.
how did you get to see the sched of july 21?

 

[Aikouka]

on regals site, I can only see movies to next week.
how did you get to see the sched of july 21?

Sometimes, you can see that far in advance if a movie is super hyped and they're releasing tickets really early. However, I doubt Valerian is one of those for most theaters. I can only go into next week for the theater that I usually go to, but that means I can get my War for the Planet of the Apes tickets!

Speaking of that movie, Valerian will have some tough competition. They'll be going up against Spider-Man in its third weekend and Apes in its second weekend, which is when you usually get the hold-outs that were waiting for crowds to die down. Waiting a couple more weeks would've likely been a bit better.

 

[Thebobo]

Yea I just was looking for something new and fresh. Not disparaging the movies you and apparently millions others like and I am sure I'll see them when they get to cable just that I'm tired of the same old apes and spiders.

 

[Thebobo]

Ok so it is playing at my local theater tickets purchased

 

[Fritzo]

Looks like Hunger Games in Space.

 

[JEDI]

so I plan to see it tonite in 3D.
I have a free tix to regular showing and will pay a upcharge for 3D.

lets hope the special effects are as good as the trailers lead me to believe.

 

[madoka]

Given that they are already discounting the movie tickets, it does not bode well for the movie.

https://slickdeals.net/f/10369860-5...keting-powered-by-atom-tickets?src=SiteSearch

 

[Number1]

Going to see it tonight, looks interesting.

 

[JEDI]

Given that they are already discounting the movie tickets, it does not bode well for the movie.

https://slickdeals.net/f/10369860-5...keting-powered-by-atom-tickets?src=SiteSearch

ugg.. thx.
looks like i'll skip paying the upcharge for 3D and just use my free tix for the regular showing

 

[Thebobo]

Next week for me. Hate crowds. Less people to yell at for talking

 

[JEDI]

So I paid the upcharge and saw it in 3D anyway.
it was subtle and not over the top.

the movie was good till the end, of course. plot holes galore.
but I expected that. I went because I wanted to see the cinematography (and my free tix was expiring soon).

Plot Holes:

Spoiler

1) The premise that started this was the humans were at war. to win, they sacrificed a planet.
it was collateral damage. if they didn't do that, they would have lost.
why be ashamed of that?

2) you needed the animal to replicate the power pearl. but you only have 1.
so if you're trading it for the replicator animal, what good does it do you?

3) you know waaaaay in advance that the evil killer robots will do something evil.
3b) evil robots kill an entire platoon of highly armed and armored soldiers but the star of the movie destroyed them all with a little gun and wearing a shirt and shorts.

What happened to the aliens at the end?
and was that really Rihanna doing the strip show? didn't know she was that flexible.

 

[Number1]

Not impressed. There was about 10 people in the theater...Great visual, the 3D was spectacular at time but blurry and unwatchable at time. The story made no sense especially at the beginning. Rihanna was OK, Cara looked great but uninspiring and Dane was meh. Don't bother.

 

[Thebobo]

Ouch, Lol well now my expectations are lower so it can only get better!

 

[madoka]

Ouch, Lol well now my expectations are lower so it can only get better!

Let me know if their dead eye stares were a real thing.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/review-valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets/

Still, the movie could have skated by if the leads were at least charismatic and fun, but DeHaan and Delevigne are stilted and dead-eyed in just about every scene. It’s probably not their fault; Besson takes a deep dive in CGI wizardy like it might be his only chance to do so, and his actors are buried beneath what can only be described as “Guardians of the Galaxy” as envisioned by a cracked-out Willy Wonka.

On top of that, Valerian and Laureline are a generic screen couple envisioned as a loveable cad and his long-suffering, plucky paramour; however, their rote I-love-you-marry-me/you’re-a-jerk-with-commitment-issues banter is so clunky, hackneyed, and slightly gas-lighting that they come across as one of those vapid, obnoxious couples you wish would take their abusive bickering some place other than the check-out line at Ikea.

 

[Thebobo]

Let me know if their dead eye stares were a real thing.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/review-valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets/

I see your negative review and raise it with a positive review!

.....Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is an utter delight and one of the most gorgeous fantasies to hit the screen in recent memory—the kind of film that can take moviegoers logy from the usual array of craptaculars and render them absolutely giddy with its pure fun. The question, of course, is whether viewers will be willing to give its weirdo charms a chance. But if you want to come away from a film feeling dazzled instead of simply dazed, this is an absolute must. Besides, it is almost certainly going to become a cult favorite in a few years, so why not get in on the ground floor while you can?

I try not to put too much stock in reviews. There was a lot of hatred for The Fifth Element when it came out and it's one of my favorite science fiction movies. Also I liked Lucy and Joan of Arc.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets-2017

 

[Svnla]

Ok, just purchased 1 ticket for a 3D show tomorrow morning. Surcharge to purchase online? What is this? Ticketmaster?

Anyway, with the $5 off, the 3D ticket is about $7.50 with the surcharge, a little less than the normal ticket of the first show of the day of $8 for regular (not 3D).

I will be back with a review.

 

[ctbaars]

Not impressed. There was about 10 people in the theater...Great visual, the 3D was spectacular at time but blurry and unwatchable at time. The story made no sense especially at the beginning. Rihanna was OK, Cara looked great but uninspiring and Dane was meh. Don't bother.

Well, I just got back from seeing it.
The good news? I'm all of sudden looking forward to the next Sharknado!
You had more people in the theater than I did. At times the visuals were good. Inside the bus was good. Outside the "school bus"; Really bad and cheesy. Just when a rocket chase scene gets really good, they go cheesy and poorly executed visual. It was very frustrating. The bad-robot acting was better than those two leads. It was really that bad. He is not a scruffy looking Nurf herder. You never think it. She was okay. The whole relationship story was forced and poorly done. As reference, I though Wonder Woman relationship story line was fantastic and well integrated into the plot. Not here. At all.
The actual story was pretty good though and I got into rooting for the good aliens. There was a lot of Imagination put on screen just very poorly executed and some of the best visuals really had little to do with the plot. They do make you go wow, but now, back to those two losers. However, the over-arching love theme of the movie itself is decent. Not Interstellar decent if you remember that movie by my estimation but touching still the same, in this movies mechanical way.
This should have gone straight to SYFY channel.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm going to talk a little bit about parts in the movie below... none of it is a spoiler though unless tagged...

The movie was okay. Essentially, it failed to execute one of the major rules of screenwriting: "Show don't tell." I know that people really hate origin stories, but I think this movie would've been a lot better if it was treated as more of an origin story... or at least spent some time in the past. It could have essentially been the equivalent of J.J. Abrams first Star Trek movie. Instead of this, the movie literally just tells you everything. It starts off with Valerian and Laureline together on a faux beach (think Holodeck), and Valerian just starts tossing Laureline around being all, "You know you want me..."

Now, I'm not the type that's going to start calling it as demeaning women or anything like that, but it definitely shows a bad side of Valerian right from the start without really giving us anything interesting about him. Maybe Besson thought he was directing a Pepé le Pew movie, because Valerian was pretty much treating Laureline like the painted cat. Anyway, Valerian then spouts off how he's the best agent with a bunch of test scores and such (an example of failing to "show don't tell"). What felt really awkward was when they approached Alpha (the huge space station), and they ask their computer to give them information. The computer literally gives them a tour-guide-style introduction on the city, which made me wonder, ".... these two agents are from Alpha... why do they need all this info?" Maybe if the movie said something like, "Ah, we're finally back at Alpha after being gone for years...!"

This is another example where I think I need to offer my services as a screenplay reviewer. It's so easy to see where these movies falter. I don't think Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevigne were really that bad, but rather, they weren't directed properly and the script's dialog sucked... badly.

Plot Holes:

Spoiler

1) The premise that started this was the humans were at war. to win, they sacrificed a planet.
it was collateral damage. if they didn't do that, they would have lost.
why be ashamed of that?

3) you know waaaaay in advance that the evil killer robots will do something evil.
3b) evil robots kill an entire platoon of highly armed and armored soldiers but the star of the movie destroyed them all with a little gun and wearing a shirt and shorts.

Spoiler

1) Purposefully killing a race like that would likely be against treaties and such. It would be these days, so I'm not surprised if it would be in the movie world either.

3) Yeah, the robots were obviously going to be used in some evil fashion. I wish they would've made them a suspense factor by having them show up more often in awkward situations so you think they would go bad, but they don't. So, you knew they would likely be evil, but had no idea when.
3b) I heard a review complain about this, but I don't see what the issue is. It's VERY obvious that Valerian's gun is nothing like the other guns in the movie. His gun has multiple different abilities that were shown such as being able to freeze the soldier or electrify the pimp. Keep in mind that Valerian was also able to hide behind the beheaded robot while the other robots shot at it. In other words, even the other robots couldn't really deal damage to each other with their weapons. Maybe it would've been good if there was a part in the movie where Valerian made some remark about his gun... perhaps if Laureline asked if she could use it, and he said something like, "You don't have the qualifications use a weapon of this power."

 

[Svnla]

Ok, back from the 3D showing earlier today.

The movie was ok, not bad but not good either. The two main characters were totally miscast. The guy looks like a teenager and he is a major in the military? Seriously? Same for the girl, just like a Calif valley teenager/surfer and a Sgt.? Whaaaattttt?

The 3D was decent, I did like it when the flip in and out scenes at the big market but it was a bit dark for me, especially at the beginning with the princess and the beach. Day time and it was not bright enough for me.

I did chuckle at the 3 ducks/penguins, greedy bastards ($100 for further information, for each of us ==> $300 total).

The Pearls are too good to be true. Hold no anger toward the ones that destroyed their whole planet and most of their people.

I do not know where they spent the $150 million budget because the 3D/special effect was not that great/expensive looking to me.

 

[gorcorps]

What I wrote in the other thread before seeing this one:

Valerian - 6/10

Good sci-fi/fantasy flick that would have been better if the lead actors weren't so terrible. Action was good, aliens were all good, but the two main actors were so bad it really brought the film down as a whole. I thought the male actor was pretty good in Chronicle, but was really bad here. Every time he opened his mouth it sounded like he was channeling Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted. It was such a cringeworthy delivery that you couldn't get into it. The female lead wasn't terrible, but she was just boring. No chemistry with her partner (which isn't that surprising given how bad he was himself) but she just fell flat.

The story wasn't bad up until the last 30 minutes or so. They spoon feed you the ending with a very unoriginal "revalation" of the main characters explaining things for the audience. It wouldn't have been that hard to write this more naturally and then it might have been worth a 7/10, but the ending was pretty badly delivered... made even worse by the terrible acting.

Shame really because otherwise it would have been a great sci-fantasy flick.

 

[Aikouka]

Good sci-fi/fantasy flick that would have been better if the lead actors weren't so terrible. Action was good, aliens were all good, but the two main actors were so bad it really brought the film down as a whole. I thought the male actor was pretty good in Chronicle, but was really bad here. Every time he opened his mouth it sounded like he was channeling Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted. It was such a cringeworthy delivery that you couldn't get into it. The female lead wasn't terrible, but she was just boring. No chemistry with her partner (which isn't that surprising given how bad he was himself) but she just fell flat.

I heard quite a bit about how the acting was the weakest part of the movie, so when I went to see it, it's one thing that I focused on. I mentioned it above, but I don't think the actors were really at fault here. Do I think there could've been a better casting choice that would've been naturally better? Yeah. However, I think the cast was capable of handling it, but the two things that screwed it up were the poor script and apparent lack of direction. ...and guess who was in charge of both of those? The director and screenwriter, Luc Besson. I mean... the script provided a bunch of poor dialog for Valerian and Laureline to the point where Valerian came across as a total creeper. I mentioned above how I think the movie would've been better if it spent more time actually introducing the characters to us... even if it acted as more of an "origin film". The movie spent more time introducing Alpha's origins than it did the main cast.

As for the direction, there were a few bits of dialog that stood out to me during the movie. I thought that the dialog was okay, but it just wasn't delivered well. Well, to be fair, the delivery was fine for how the characters were made in the movie, but not for how you would expect this Han Solo-esque character to act. I really think Besson should've directed the actors differently. I wonder if the reason why Fifth Element works so well is because of Bruce Willis. The guy is known for being picky about things, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was willing to improvise or go his own way. After all, Corbin Dallas was pretty much just John McClane in space.

 

[Svnla]

Latest news, this movie only made about $17 million over the weekend. Big stinking bomb.

 

[Aikouka]

Latest news, this movie only made about $17 million over the weekend. Big stinking bomb.

The movie seemed to have some Chinese funding given one of the logos at the beginning. That's likely also the reason the Chinese were the first people to arrive at the station that became Alpha, and had such a hearty welcome. In other words, some of the foreign markets may matter too. The US seems to be at a point where movies that lack high appeal can be easily tanked by poor ratings and/or word of mouth. Although, I don't think we're at a point where high praise necessarily means good sales. Take a peek at Baby Driver, which has done okay, but not as great as you might expect from its high Rotten Tomatoes score... especially given that it has quite a bit of action in it! (Action movies tend to do well.) I do think replacing the cast could have likely given it some of that "high appeal" that I mentioned before. I did notice that the Commander (played by Clive Owen) stood out the most, but he wasn't in much of the movie.