Luc Besson's dream project is an eye-wateringly expensive grand space opera that certainly delivers on scale and spectacle but the content has little depth, and therefore it succeeds as a hyper-kinetic and eyeball-searing romp with its comic-book origins clear in its stylings and characters. At over two hours it is overlong for the story it tells, but the huge visuals and action set-pieces work well. Dane DeHaan and Carla Delevingne work hard but lack the essential chemistry needed for the romantic sparring, hampered by dialogue that at times does not deliver which also afflicts the film as a whole (especially in the control room scenes). The influential comic series means that a lot of the film's design and story bears references to the Star Wars and Avatar universes, although the wildly creative ideas on display here are never less than interesting. Its box office underperformance may be partly due to the less-than-marketable casting and its uncompromising genre approach, but viewed on its own terms Valerian makes for an acceptable sci-fi actioner.
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