The film is based on an old comic book, which is interesting because it was Lucas who licked the images for Star Wars. The comic itself has long deserved its own adaptation, but it turned out terrible. Perhaps the problem is that the film was originally positioned as a “new Fifth Element”, i.e. was not a creative revelation for the director, but was a repetition of the path trodden and already forgotten.
The downsides are awful:
- The film has 3 sets in a row: the exposition to the station, to the island planet, to the Glavheroes.
- Their relationship is extremely incomprehensible: from the very first frames they behave as if they are already a couple, Laureline puts a purely marital claim that Valera forgot about her birthday. But he has only just begun to pursue it.
- There are broken scenes and twists. For example, a robber from the market promised to find Valerian and take revenge. I didn't find him, we never saw him again.
- A significant part of the plot information is given out not to understand where the chatty ducks came from. It's called a machine god. This technique in decent works has not been used for a couple of thousand years.
- There are no revealed characters in the film at all, they have no soul dialogue, no past, no arches, all these people are no different from what they do. These are game bots.
- In the center of the plot, as is often the case in bad taste, is McGuffin, this time it is a magical animal.
- He eats an object, and he eats a hundred of them. You know what it's called? Perpetual motion. When we were 5 years old, we dreamed of copying real oranges or eggs with mirrors or a printer. And here it was made a concept film with a huge budget.
- There are hostile races on the space station! How did they get there? Don't race make local laws when they arrive at the station? How is it even possible that waiters are free to catch people for the king's lunch? Valerian KNOWS about their techniques, i.e. this is not some new information.
- It also shows a bunch of unnecessary races. Here we have robots engaged in finance, here are all sorts of allyens spin something of their own. And all of this only happens for a few seconds. Do you realize that the budget was spent on this prank?
- Some recorded a plus Rihanna dance. Except it's mounted. The magic of cutting anyone can be made a dancer.
- What was the point of seeking disguise, avoiding incident, if Valerian broke into the throne room anyway, killed the king and a bunch of people? It was also possible to storm the palace from the main entrance.
- So the pearls needed pearls and a replicator beast to launch the ship and create a hologram of their world? The problem is presented as critical for their species. What, a lot of use for this hologram? It's not re-creating their planet, it's not creating extra space, it's just a holodeck, it's not even worth the conflict. Couldn’t that be done with another energy? Yes, they live in a world where everyone has ships, and somehow others do without such cores.
- With whom was the war that the pearls suffered? This race is not shown, not a word is said about this conflict. Maybe a plot-forming event of historical significance and universal scope was worth some ... you know, descriptions?
- Also one of the plot-forming ideas is the spirit of the princess, who inhabited Valerian. This in the film in total is given a minute and a half, the topic is not disclosed at all. The spirit did not manifest itself, her presence in the film is a couple of references in words.
- The events of the film are not focused on some important epic story as in "The Fifth Element", instead there are 4 acts: a slob in the market, she saves him, then immediately he saves her, and an uninteresting unstressed denouement. The characters mostly solved the problems they created.
As a result, we have a film in which absolutely all plot-forming concepts are not shown or disclosed, in which there are no interesting characters and, of course, there is no logic and plausibility. Information washed out to the heroes from under the bush, and the plot is built on McGuffins, and they were not even needed to solve the problem. Timekeeping of the film instead of a good story is wasted on the image of broken images, superfluous characters, on unfunny jokes, while the main theme of the film is first sucked out of the finger, and then comes down on the brakes.