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REMEMBER: If you enjoy this Podcast, it’s supported by Chris’ Patreon – please, consider a contribution.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
it was really hard to find this from the homepage
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Sorry to ramble, guys. I respect both your opinions, but I was just so utterly disappointed, soul crushed by Valerian….
I watched 5th Element in preparation for this film. Took my wife, happy as a clam. Within the first 5 minutes I was unimpressed; by the first hour I was sad; by the end I was so shells hocked as to turn to black humor in order to make sense of the universe.
The opening credits were a bunch of humans shaking hands in increasingly silly ways. It was not uplifting. It was not interesting. It was the most boring version of “what else is out there.” And Alpha? Hey, a bunch of aliens living…in segregated quarters…so there’s some coexistence vis-a-vis not coexisting…great…makes me wonder about the power dynamics between the humans and some of the (seemingly) lesser races. Awful lot of humans in alternate reality Federation…looking a lot more like the Galactic Empire there…
Miscasting? Nah, just horrid dialogue. The cast did a fine job given the dross they were tasked with delivering. “You don’t know what love is…” Man, really? “I want to be the only track on your playlist.” For serious? “I’m a soldier; I play by the rules,” says Valerian after he spent the whole movie breaking the rules. Sigh after disappointed sigh…
Every conversation between the 2 protagonists was an argument–trite, cliched, with a relationship arch that was unearned. They don’t come across as a dynamic duo that’s been through hell and back–wherein a marriage proposal would be dramatic and earned. Nope. It’s forced and irritating, from the very. first. conversation.
The action scenes were boring as well. Uninspired choreography; confused geography; no taking advantage of cool concepts (how they made a multi-dimensional heist a chore to watch is beyond me). Dunkirk outclassed that action during the opening exposition text.
Why did they keep foreshadowing the obvious? Clive Owen the bad guy? Yep, knew that from second one; the black guards being a bad thing that will do bad things? Yep, knew that already, didn’t need the other 3 reminders…
Even the music was flat and depressing! It’s just like the Marvel movies…the music does nothing to add emotion, add tension, add passion to the film. Where was the industrial… future… Euro… pop techno weirdness of the 5th Element? I’m not asking for the same exact thing, just music that’s as interesting as the visuals were trying to be–music with as much heart, character, depth as the original Conan the Barbarian, as the Korngold epics of Errol Flynn, as Clint Mansell or James Horner…
And, as my wife pointed out, why is it called Valerian? The comics are Valerian and Laureline. A minor, but perhaps telling, oversight. They’re a partnership, but it doesn’t feel like it throughout the film. The title is a Freudian slip, a little hint right before you even see it that the movie does not mesh, that the different departments were not on the same page.
It’s not even a spectacular failure. What were they reaching for? “The future is bright, guys!” I’m calling bull on that. Give me more of Batman vs Superman’s post-modern meta-narrative questioning; more 5th Element love being the ultimate salvation of an action movie; more Baby Driver’s legitimately touching teenage love story….anything but the noxious fumes of this dumpster fire of wasted celluloid.
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