Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Visually, I think this movie is outstanding — just like with Besson’s The 5th Element, I love seeing a sci-fi world that is just so inventive and fun, and inspired by European comics. I wasn’t a big fan of the original comic when I was a kid — I think it was a bit too dark and wordy for me at the time — but I recently decided to revisit the series, reading the first 8-9 books, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Watching the film, on top of the great visuals, I thought the story itself was a decent one for this kind of film (of the species trying to survive) but what was a huge disappointment for me was the casting of Valerian and Laureline. I don’t mind these actors generally, but here I thought they were horribly miscast, especially Valerian. And on top of that, I found that the two had zero chemistry together, which made their whole “relationship” feel extra weird (why would these people be interested in each other at all). I can say that I enjoyed watching the movie because of the eye candy, but it’s a shame that they went with these leads.