6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Time-traveling agent Valerian is sent to investigate a galactic empire, along with his partner Laureline.
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, John Goodman, Ethan Hawke, Clive OwenAction | 100% |
Adventure | 89% |
Sci-Fi | 81% |
Fantasy | 57% |
Comic book | 44% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 kbps)
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Question: How is it possible for a film with a reported box office take of well north of $200 million to be considered a “flop”? Answer: When that film cost close to $200 million to begin with, a total that doesn’t include the all important (and infamously amorphous) “marketing” and related costs. It’s been kind of interesting to see some cinematic stalwarts like the Wachowskis and now Luc Besson stumble, at least a bit, when they attempt to bring a high concept science fiction epic to the screen, as the Wachowskis did with the largely lamented Jupiter Ascending and Besson has done now with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. One of the kind of bizarre aspects of both of these perceived “failures” is that Besson and the Wachowskis are no strangers to the science fiction idiom, with the Wachowskis of course having provided one of the best remembered franchises in the relatively recent history of science fiction cinema, The Matrix / The Matrix Reloaded / The Matrix Revolutions, and Besson being equally celebrated for films like The Fifth Element and Lucy. The Wachowskis and Besson also share one other salient trait, and that’s their typically unflagging sense of visual excitement, and even those who have taken these particular filmmakers to task for this or that assumed shortcoming have almost always agreed that from a purely visual standpoint, their films tend to evoke wonder and perhaps even awe. Besson evidently first started thinking about adapting the French comic book Valérian and Laureline during the shoot for The Fifth Element, but some of the more daunting challenges of making a film with an inherent need for staggering special visual effects seemed to make the project less than feasible. While some might accuse Besson of relying too much on technologies that have matured in the years subsequent to The Fifth Element's release, there's little doubt that despite a number of potentially hobbling issues, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets offers viewers a lot to look at.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1.
Shot with Arri Alexas and (perhaps surprisingly) finished at a 2K DI, this is an often stunning visual presentation, if one can overlook some of the
patently fake looking CGI. Textures are actually a bit more prevalent in the actual viewing experience than some of the screenshots accompanying this
review might suggest, but even so, some of the material, notably the whole early scene on the pearl planet, looks like something out of a not overly
realistically rendered video game, at least in terms of general environments if not some of the characters within those environments. That said, detail
can be quite winning, as on the little lizard creature who turns out to be a central element in the plot. While the use of CGI to provide backgrounds
even in "human" scenes can be obvious, generally speaking detail levels are excellent, and fine detail on practical items like props and costumes is
often very impressive. As should probably be expected from a Besson film, the palette is a riot of hues, and the Blu-ray presentation is quite inviting in
this regard.
Note: Though this film had a 3D theatrical exhibition, it looks like Lionsgate is not releasing a 3D Blu-ray version.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets offers a Dolby Atmos track that has all the requisite surround activity that audiophiles have come to expect from this newer codec, but which to my ears occasionally suffered from some odd prioritization and/or mix issues. The early scene on the pearl planet seemed to elevate ambient environmental sounds over (alien) dialogue at times, and later even "human" dialogue seemed to take a sonic back seat amplitude wise to other elements like Alex, the AI voice that Valerian utilizes. This one qualm aside, the rest of this presentation is continually engaging, offering huge sweeping panning noises, a glut of extremely forceful LFE, and pinpoint placement of midair effects. Fidelity is top notch throughout, and dynamic range is extremely wide.
Note: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is one of those outings where it's assumed that adding an umlaut over a name's vowels makes it more "alien". Many of the names listed above "officially" include umlauts.- Alpha Introduction
- Princess Liho-Minaa
- Empress Aloi
- Destruction of Mui
- Igon Siruss
- Motion Capture Cameras
- Kris Wu Set Tour
- Melo the Convertor
- Pearl Guns
- Kris Wu 4D Scan
- Paradise Alley
- Boulan Bathor Emperor
- Emperor Haban-Limai
- K-Trons
This review continues in my by now long (and growing longer) tradition of stating that if you're the same kind of fan of eye candy as I am, you may well be willing to overlook the other manifest issues hobbling Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. The film's plot is resolutely predictable, and some of the performances are ham handed (at best), but Lordy does Besson ever know how to fill a frame. Technical merits are excellent for those considering a purchase.
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