Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets

Valerian is classic Space Opera in excellent 3D and superb natural surround sound presented in extravagant detail by Luc Besson, drawing on his experience in making the Fifth Element twenty years earlier. The CGI uses all the latest techniques and appears to be seamless with the live action. It is very easy to abandon reality and happily lose oneself in this exuberant romp through space, but those of us not interested in comic-book SF might well look elsewhere. Ignore the paper-thin plot and enjoy the action which is surprisingly close to how I remembered the two principals from reading the stories forty years ago. Delevingne steals the film with her enthusiasm and energy, and DeHaan is suitably stiff-upper-lip and one-track-minded. Luc Besson’s film takes the characters and the spirit of the stories, with the co-operation and blessing of the original authors, and adds a modern cinematic enhancement while avoiding confusing the uninitiated among us with the ‘temporal’ part of the ‘Valerian agent spatio-temporal’ at the heart of the originals. (In the comics Valerian is from the 28th Century and Laureline from the 11th.) It is good old-fashioned space-opera (ie not much science, but a whole lot of fun) given a French flavour; whereby the hero is gung-ho and plays by the book even when he might be wrong, while also sometimes being a bit dim and often needing to be rescued from embarrassment by his smarter but junior female partner, fortunately his heart is in the right place. In other words, it is a classic relationship that has been used many times in many works of fiction. Most French youngsters in the 1970s and 1980s will have been familiar with rugged square-jawed Valerian and his red-haired sidekick/romantic other half Laureline appearing as a regular feature in the comic strips; Besson was one of them, as he explains in the Making-of Extras on the second disc. I was lucky enough to have been given eight of the Valerian annuals from 1971-1978 to help me learn French, and kept them for my children, we all thoroughly enjoyed them, and this afternoon I enjoyed the film just as much – without needing to remember any French. I have the two discs set with the 3D HD on one disc, and the normal HD and Extras etc on the second disc. The sound is excellent on both versions of the film (137 minutes), with 7.1 (Dolby TrueHD Atmos) and 5.1 as the options, with stereo as the default on the Extras. The picture is 2.4:1 when viewed on a 16:9 screen. Digital download of this is available, and the code on my sample expires 26/11/2019.

The 4K version is just touch sharper than my dvd of this film. The film itself is great with the changing planet scenes very well done. The other dimension scene is really good and well thought out . Ethan Hawke stands out as Jolly the pimp as he really nailed the slick pimp swagger in a similar vein to Harvey Keitel in Taxi driver all those years ago. Ethan Hawke really surprised me here as he was totally convincing in this role , with the body language and facial expressions along with the banter. In all a great film , fantastic visuals , top soundtrack and good acting. A must for any sci~fi buff.

As with all Luc Bessons Sci Fi movies this has a tendency to being slightly nuts with a lurid colour palette. it's definitely more than a bit OTT. The film is based on the French science fiction comics series Valérian and Laureline. Stars Dane DeHane as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as his associate Laureline who are special agents for the Earth authorities who are tasked with recovering an alien artefact. Much high jinks ensue until they get to the City of a thousand planets. Where it soon becomes clear that there is something decidedly crooked going on behind the scenes. At this point the plot seems to owe a lot to Avatar, even the benign aliens look somewhat reminiscent of the Na'vi. The support cast is strong, the effects are good and the film is enjoyable Delevingne is surprisingly good but DeHane is not a strong enough lead, comes from the Hayden Christensen school of charisma free miscast actors. Reviews have been extremely varied some like it others think it's a Razzie contender, all I can say is try it and make your own mind up there are many many far worse films out there, I liked it.

This is one of Luc Besson's more polished sci fi dramas.

If you like Star Wars then hopefully you will love this film!!! I think it's brilliant, very, very imaginative, the aliens are fantastic, so are the world's on show, plus the ideas such as "Big Market" are outstanding, everything is so beautiful and bright, unlike a lot of gloomily shot films, a lot of them are shot so dark now days you can't see what the hell is going on ! The first two scenes, the start of Alpha and alien contact, then the Pearls home world really set you up for the rest of the film, they are both very, very well done, one of the best movie starts I can think of. The plot might have the odd hole, but on the whole I think it's well thought out, much better then the average crash, bang , wallop no brainer actioneer. I also liked the charecters, not just the two hero's but their commanding officer, the three bat like alien informents, the submarine captian, and last but by no means least the Pearls themselves, they one of the most civilised alien races I've seen in cinema!!! About two hours long this film is packed, at the price Amazon is selling the DVD for it's a steal, so go on take a risk and try it, I don't think you will regret it!!! This one definitely goes in to my favorite top ten SF movies.

Movie was pretty good. The problem is with the manufacturer. Very bad quality control. Both discs and inside of case were covered in a substance that needed to be cleaned. Very bad to get a brand new item that is extremely dirty and won't play until you clean it. This is a big problem with a lot of movies now. Needs to be addressed.

In genere non amo i film tratti da fumetti, ma poichè amo Luc Besson ho comprato questo dvd. Live action basato sul fumetto fantascientifico" Valerian et Laurelin", è ambientato nel 2740. Besson desiderava portare al cinema questa graphic novel da parecchio tempo, ma solo ora la tecnologia gli ha consentito di realizzare quell'idea. Per me il film è stato una grande delusione. non mi è piaciuto nulla, nè l'ambientazione, nè la trama, nè i personaggi decisamente sopra le righe e soprattutto i due protagonisti, interpretati da due mediocri attori ( Dane Dehaan e la modella Cara Delevingne), pur avendolo visto in lingua originale. Se vi piacciono i fumetti, dategli una possibilità, ma certo non è un film all'altezza della filmografia di Besson, autori di capolavori.

La qualité de ce 4k est au rendez-vous. qualité d'image et du son sont au top!

日本公開前に観ることができ、とても幸せです。画像も最新技術で大変綺麗です。

Great movie. worth the price.