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****
Dir: Luc Besson (12A, 137 mins)
The French graphic novel sci-fi series created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres that is said to have influenced Star Wars comes to the big screen via Gallic stylist Luc Besson, the director of Lucy, La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element. A lifelong fan of the Valérian and Laureline comic strip, Besson takes one of the source graphic novels and wrings it through with CGI eye popping results. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne play Valeris and Laureline, mismatched coppers of the future travelling in space and time and flirting with each other along the way. The plot takes us to Alpha, a space station, that is literally teeming with alien life, a city of a thousand planets, all living in harmony until an unseen force threatens Alpha and the universe itself. Assisting the somewhat charisma free leads are Rihanna as a shape shifting chanteuse, Ethan Hawke as a cowboy pimp and Clive Owen as their commander. It’s technicolour eye candy, packed with SFX, but like Besson’s The Fifth Element before it, it may be somewhat of an acquired taste. Despite the fact that sci-fi is indebted to the source material, there is a wealth of now familiar cinematic tropes here, albeit seen through Besson’s idiosynchratic eye. A visual spectacle undoubtedly, with hopefully more amidst the planets.
Opens Aug 2