Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Dunkirk Short Reviews

I saw in theatre the “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" of Luc Besson two weeks ago. And personally i loved it enormously. But I also understood why those who hated it hated it. Visually the film is incredible. It is in fact a very "Neptunian" film where imagination "has taken the power" and we have to let ourselves flow into the film and accept that the story - that some find difficult to follow but which is nevertheless clear if one follows the movie - is not "square" as it can be in American blockbusters where the good ones and villains and the stakes are clearly identified every second, but in a fairly primary way. Unfortunately, as today's public has become accustomed to this, when they have a film where they really have to "follow" and not be dispersed to understand what's going on, he's probably tend to get lost in this type of film. Someone in the comments here said that it was “a beautiful mess”. It is beautiful indeed but it’s not a mess, or at least it was not for me.

Two things, however, prevent the film from being perfect, and it is not the two main actors ( the girl is actually quite close to the Laureline's character in the graphic novel from which the film is inspired), though i find both of them a bit “young” in age, i think that actors five years older would have been better for the characters. But it's the "bad guy" who is not bad enough - Besson or the actor seems to have forgotten the famous Hitchcockian principle saying that better is the villain, better is the movie “. Also, the last twenty minutes of the film don’t work that well. Because, whatever those who did not like it said about the story, the film has a story and it must be finished. As a result, the film becomes more "rational" in its filming and this breaks the "Neptunian” charm of it, but Besson did not have the choice. Even if the film is not as perfectly structured as the films of James Cameron, in the direction of whom Besson obviously glances, I think, for example, that James Cameron will love the film despite its imperfections. On the visual level the film is a real treat, Rihanna does a fun cameo, and you will be blown away by the visuals but one should not see it a day when he is too rational.




I Also watched in theatre "Dunkirk" of Christopher Nolan and i liked it too. It's a much different story of course as it tells the story of the needed evacuation of thousands of British soldiers surrounded at the start of World War II by the German army on a beach near Dunkerque in the North of France. In this case, Nolan has chosen to have a minimum of dialogue as he wanted to have the audience experience "physically" what have lived these soldiers stuck on the beach. Although the film has excellent actors like Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy and the excellent Mark Rylance as well as a good music by Hans Zimmer i wouldn't say that Nolan totally succeeded in what he wanted to do. But it's a good movie so i would recommend it too, and the actions scenes are extremely well filmed.