Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets

Cara Delevingne's other starring film role is 2017's Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, a space opera from Luc Besson. Based on a French comic book series, it was a bomb in the U.S., and after watching it I see why.

A prologue explains how a space station, that was continually added to, eventually is so large it threatens to crash down on Earth, so it is let free into the galaxy. Beings from all sorts of planets inhabit it, and it becomes its own system. Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and his partner Laureline (Delevingne) are agents who are assigned on a mission to rescue a creature that convert matter to anything. This leads to several hair-raising adventures.

While the film shows a vivid imagination, especially in the design of alien creatures, Valerian cribs from many other sci-fi standards, and has some dreadful dialogue, DeHaan gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in a major movie. Delevingne is okay, although her character does little but glower. She's not asked to do much emoting and that's probably for the best.

There are some cameos by notable actors, such as Ethan Hawke as a sleazy strip-club owner, Rihanna as a shape-shifting dancer, and Clive Owen as the villain of the story. This is very sad, as Owen was once on the cusp of major stardom, and seeing him relegated to this turkey is depressing.

Besson always brings an imagination to his work, such as in The Fifth Element, but this one just never came together, and feels like stuff just flung to the wall. Besson loved the Valerian comics as a youth, and probably brought too much reverence to it, which is always a risk when you look back at your childhood loves.