‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ Suffers Poor Script and Original Black Nerd Problem

Includes some spoilers for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Valerian and the City of a Thousand Innocent Bystanders. The newest Luc Besson film delivers stunning visuals that make you feel like your eyes have taste buds and you are a foodie at a Gastro bar in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, the screenplay makes you want to ask for the check immediately, despite how excited I was to see what the creator of the Fifth Element had in store for us.

The film is centered around special agents Valerian and Laureline — the movie is named after the man and not the woman partner when the graphic novel is titled Valerian and Laureline together. Partners in the intergalactic federation and romantic partners as well, which is aesthetically unpleasing as the two look like they could be fraternal twins.

The story is the classic “American high-ranking official commits a war crime against an entire race and spends every effort trying to contain the not so elaborate cover up.” This would be okay if the film had found a way to expound on the story, make it something new and innovative; instead, it showed us a white millennial couple bickering about monogamy and killing everything in their path as they tour the one thousand planets of the city trying to uphold their mission. Literally, killing alien kings and citizens to save each other in what does not seem to be very perilous situations. These same situations that do not have anything to do with the main plot points. The most interesting…