Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

A race of very tall, thin humanoids with high cheekbones enjoys an idyllic existence on a distant planet, living in perfect harmony with nature until wanton humans destroy their habitat, ruining the civilization of these noble savages. 2009’s Avatar? No, it’s 2017’s Valerian, which even hired the same visual effects company that did Avatar. Yet this movie’s recycling of old ideas doesn’t end there; the entire thing feels like a cliche. It’s amazing how a movie can copy all of the elements of classic space operas like Star Wars (a small scrappy team takes on more powerful foes in deep space, encountering various alien species, militaristic thugs, and unscrupulous black-market dealers, engaging in shootouts and vehicular chases, as two leading characters engage in a figurative romantic chase) and still fail so miserably.The plot often gets sidetracked, like the interminable section with the Boulan Bathors, which does nothing for the movie except allow Valerian to rescue the damsel-in-distress and Rihanna (with her body double) to perform a musical / dance number. And how could you improve upon finely crafted dialogue like the romantic line that Valerian delivers when proposing to Laureline at the end of the movie: “I really care for you, you know?” Especially since the actor apparently learned delivery by studying early Keanu Reeves movies. Speaking of whom, there is actually a scene in which a bomb gets defused with 1 second remaining on the digitial timer. This movie actually rubs its lack of originality in your face.At least the digital effects are pretty good. Visually, Valerian feels to a great extent like a snazzier, more technically sophisticated version of Besson’s Fifth Element. Unfortuantely, that’s not nearly enough to save it.-RealGood

An amazing tribute to the source material and expands on the story by adapting it to film. I really loved this as the passion for the source material by Luc Besson really shines through. I think the reason for the poor reviews are due to the departure by the director from some of his other films. It takes itself less seriously than many additions to science fiction coming out around this time. For example Blade Runner recently came out at the same time and has a starkly different tone, more serious and bleak. By Valerian is not like this, it has a fun quirky feel. It is more about the people and the feelings of the characters and uses science fiction as the vehicle to tell a more human story. Additionally the science fiction elements are not really explained in gory detail, but they are clever and interesting nonetheless. I see this as part of the fun since the setting is far enough in the future to make this believable and it allows more focus on the real takeaway of the story, which is simply the importance of love and the softer side of humanity. Not the way technology will ultimately alter our lives or how androids will take over like so many stories in this genre focus on.- Nathan

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke
Directors: Luc Besson
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English
Subtitles: Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. )
Number of discs: 1
Rated: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
Studio: LIONSGATE
DVD Release Date: November 21, 2017
Run Time: 137 minutes
ASIN: B075FLJ8HP