Besson's Dazzling But Dull 'Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets'
French writer-director Luc Besson mounts a hugely imaginative sci-fi spectacle, but builds it around papier-thin characters and dialogue.
Although Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is visually overstuffed and sometimes cloaked in darkness, one thing is easy to see: how its principal setting, the sprawling space-station Alpha, parallels writer-director Luc Besson's utopian filmmaking vision.
Over hundreds of years, the earthling-founded Alpha has appended precincts and welcomed species, until by the 26th century it's home to almost
