Tag Archives: Comics

Review: City of a Thousand Planets

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Sometimes a good thing is worth waiting for. Fifty years after the debut of the French space adventure comic series Valérian and Laureline, these intrepid heroes have reached the big screen. Valerian is the creation of writer Pierre Christian and illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières. The series has won numerous awards but few people know it in the English-speaking world. Though I haven’t yet read this long running series (it would give Doctor Who a run for its money) judging by the movie, it must be pretty impressive.

Valerian follows the 28th Century adventures of government agent Major Valerian (played by Dane DeHaan) and his partner and love interest, Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne.) The story’s exotic settings include the giant multi-species space station Alpha and the paradise world of Mul. The film is visually stunning and replete with the usual CGI spectacle. The action is non-stop but well paced, not needlessly frenetic like, for example, J.J. Abram’s recent Star Trek and Star Wars movies.

Though “City of a Thousand Planets” is not the most inspired title, I’m at a loss to think of a better one, except perhaps “Series that Spawned a Thousand Imitators.” As I watched the move, I was struck by the number of elements I’d seen in other sci-fi TV shows and movies, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar, The Fifth Element, and Babylon Five. Since the Valerian comic series has been around longer than most of them (and almost as long as Star Trek,) we can guess who was plagiarizing whom. The Millenium Falcon, to name just one example, looks an awful lot like Major Valerian’s spaceship.

Overall, the movie was quite enjoyable but no masterpiece. It couldn’t live up to its amazing trailer, which features a pastiche of the movie’s most spectacular images set to the Beatles song “Because.”

The story is interesting, though not terribly original. I correctly predicted many of its plot turns, which is always disappointing. The main characters are likable though their acting is a bit flat at times. In fact, my favorite performance was by pop singer Rihanna as Bubble the shape-shifter. In particular, I found DeHaan’s youthful appearance jarring. He barely looks old enough to drive a car, let alone pilot a spaceship. The movie’s lowest points revolve around the romantic banter between him and Delevingne, which was at times painfully cliché. The action scenes made up for that.

Flaws aside, Valerian is still a must-see for any science fiction buff, especially Star Wars aficionados who loved the originals. I’d rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Deadpool

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Deadpool, Marvel’s (sort of) Superhero

Disclaimer: My son and I saw Deadpool (2015, directed by Tim Miller) a few weeks ago, so this review may not be so fresh, but better late than never.

In my childhood, I was a big fan of superhero comics, mostly from the DC universe (Batman, Superman, etc.) but I lost interest around high school. Since then, my comic reading has been confined to graphic novels like those of Alan Moore, and the occasional manga such as “Death Note.” So I knew nothing of Deadpool except seeing all the related merchandise and fan art at events like Comicon. It seemed he must have something pretty interesting or original to attract so much attention in the crowded universe of superheroes.

Deadpool is one of Marvel’s famously flawed heroes, in fact more of an anti-hero. He’s a mutant with the usual superhuman abilities, but he refuses to join the X-Men, whom he sees as namby-pamby do-gooders. In his previous life, he was Wade Wilson, a retired Special Forces soldier who’d gone to work as a “mercenary,” which in the film consists of hiring himself out to ordinary people with scores to settle. Lest he be seen as a total villain, he only takes on targets whom he feels “deserve” to be terrorized, beat up, or worse. His mutant powers, the result of a very unconventional treatment for cancer, have rendered him practically indestructible.

(By the way, what is it with comic books and alliteration? Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Clark Kent, Lois Lane…)

The actor Ryan Reynolds (alliteration again!) is a good fit for Deadpool’s wise-cracking, misanthropic character. He alone makes the Deadpool movie worth seeing, despite its standard “superhero origin story” plot. By the way, it earns its R rating with loads of violence, some kinky sex, and a lot of really crass humor. Yes, it’s funny, though it’s nowhere near the top of my list. (Just about anything starring Will Ferrell is funnier.) One of the comic high points was the fake credits at the beginning, which lists the producer as “Some Douche-bag,” the stars as “God’s Perfect Idiot” and “A Hot Chick,” with a script by “An Overpaid Tool.” The hero breaks the fourth wall more often than an angst-ridden Woody Allen movie. And it’s unrelentingly self-referential. When two characters from the X-Men refer to Doctor Xavier, Deadpool asks “Stewart or McAvoy”?

All in all, there’s plenty of action to keep it from getting dull, though as I said, you need to be able to appreciate the cruder bits. Though a surprising number of critics liked it (83% on Rotten Tomatoes) I’d grant this film an average rating, right about 3 out of 5 stars.