This column discusses the plot of “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” which must be seen to be believed, in a general way.
I’m not entirely sure how to describe a movie that features Ethan Hawke as an intergalactic pimp and a luminous performance by Rihanna as an alien stripper; an alien race whose people look like the Maasai by way of Lisa Frank and serve as a stand-in for the Jews after the Holocaust; and jellyfish who provide geolocation services by way of psychic powers. It’s a Luc Besson movie, obviously; an adaptation of a comic strip; and something the rest of pop culture ought to try to emulate if the entertainment industry can actually see what’s going on in it.
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” which stars Dane DeHaan as Major Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Sergeant Laureline, is alternately the most genuinely utopian genre movie I’ve seen in ages and an absolute goldmine of potential thinkpieces on issues of race, gender, sex and politics. The movie, which features the pair as space detective-commandos on the hunt for whatever is threatening the existence of an enormous space station, is sincere and mesmerizing, and often ridiculous. And in a very silly season in American politics, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is a brief argument for the virtue of gorgeously executed goofiness, especially in service of optimism.
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In both film and television, artists and executives too often seem to assume that the best way to make a point or be taken seriously is to be as grim as possible. Movies such as Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and television series such as “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones,” have won substantial critical acclaim and highly loyal audiences by focusing on the grimmer aspects of human nature. It’s not wrong for anyone looking at those successes to take away the message that being unsparing is the best route to praise and popularity. And if the aim of an artistic project is to explore toxic ideas of masculinity or the consequences for a society that condones rape and domestic violence, an unsparing vision and somber tone may be critical to getting your point across.
Follow this authorAlyssa Rosenberg's opinionsBut to suggest that there is a neat alignment between grim tone and subject matter and artistic quality isn’t merely creatively stifling. It’s an argument about human nature. If you say that the only way to make a penetrating, clearly observed piece of art is to focus on the worst things people do, you’re declaring that humans are fallen and degraded and that to argue anything else is deluded. That’s a thesis that is possible to defend, though it’s rarely advanced directly; instead, it’s an idea that floats around in the background of these discussions.
The characters in “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” aren’t saints, but they’re generally optimists who believe in duty, and in the utopian mission of Alpha, the space station where much of the action takes place.
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Alpha is the “City of a Thousand Planets” of the title. It went into construction in 1975 and, as it grew, became the place where citizens of different nations and then different species made contact with each other and built habitats where they could develop their expertise and share their knowledge. This timeline plays out to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” and it’s easily the best prequel to a movie since the one that preceded Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen”; in fact, it may be better.
When the movie’s action really kicks off, there appears to be a spot of growing radiation at the center of the station that imperils its existence. Valerian and Laureline’s mission is to figure out what’s happening. When the truth turns out to be far more complicated than they or their immediate superiors expect, everyone behaves in accordance with their own core values. Things blow up, but perpetrators are brought to justice rather than glamorously executed. The people who have been harmed are made as whole as it’s possible for them to be. Valerian decides he wants to be a different kind of person and, after an earnest effort, persuades Laureline to trust that he’s sincere.
In fact, for all its surface flash, the weirdest thing about “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” in this present environment may be that it’s a blockbuster that insists that acting in good faith is possible; that what’s right matters more than what’s cool; and that you can fight to affirmatively pursue utopian ideals rather than to merely preserve the status quo from evil.
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The entertainment industry being what it is, the gutsiest and most visually delightful parts of this movie will probably be disavowed, with blame going to whatever people find most problematic about it, and the exhaustion of Hollywood’s continuing efforts to turn DeHaan into a leading man. That’s too bad: “Valerian and the City of a Thousand” planets made my jaw drop in wonder at both its absurdity and its ambition. Sometimes joy and surprise are the most powerful special effects in a movie’s arsenal.
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