The Visuals In Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Are Glorious But Why Did They Have To Be In Service Of Such A Clunky Story?

Twenty years after The Fifth Element premiered to initially mixed reviews and then a massive cult following, Luc Besson has returned to the world of gonzo science-fiction, this time adapting the late 1960's French comic by Jean-Claude Mezieres that Besson loved as a kid and managed to serve as an inspiration for his own The Fifth Element as well as plenty of other high-profile science-fiction projects. Fifty years after that comic originally premiered, it's gotten its own big-budget French movie (though the dialogue is entirely English save for extra-terrestrial languages), one that attempts to replicate the artistic success of The Fifth Element.

The Fifth Element Review (Classic Write-Up)

The Fifth Element is a walking-talking contradiction of a movie when it comes to its story. Namely, it's a film stuffed to the gills with characters, concepts and mythology, all of it newly created (it's not based on a toy, comic book, TV show or previously existing source material). There's so much going on, yet, it all flows as seamlessly as a peaceful river. All of the various subplots co-exist in entertaining harmony, one of the many positive aspects of The Fifth Element that makes it such an exciting and memorable adventure.

Lucy Review

Big, Bold And Boring

Remember that scene in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace where Qui-Gon Jinn explained Midichlorians to young Anakin? It gave a dull explanation as to how The Force exactly worked, irking fans and casual moviegoers alike. Sometimes explanation is nice, but most of the time, moments full of heavy handed exposition regarding how exactly things work in a movie becomes more cumbersome than enlightening. Lucy is pretty much a 90 minute long Midichlorian sequence, despite some ambitious filmmakings choices and the presence of Scarlett Johansson.