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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

With no intelligent life on any of them

Luc Besson’s most expensive bomb to date is undeniably ambitious visually, but that only takes money. The guy who made The Fifth Element and Lucy should know there’s more to making memorable science fiction than green-screen razzle-dazzle. This is another nice-looking, effects-heavy space opera that plays like it was made by someone who has seen the cantina scene in Star Wars too many times, for people who have never seen Star Wars. The plot’s overstuffed and undercooked, the heroes uninteresting, the action unrelenting yet static. No soul, no personality, no reason to recommend it. (137 min)