‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’: Unbelievably Terrible Acting

‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ has been out in cinemas for about a week now. My parents wanted to see something last weekend, I suggested Luc Besson’s new flick, and we decided to make a day out of it. I went into this movie with very low expectations, for some reason I was never excited to see it and thus I didn’t expect much. Yet somehow, I still left the cinema extremely dissapointed and enraged.

‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ is an awful movie. It’s dull, it drags, it’s boring, the structure is beyond crap, and the whole concept of the movie is ridiculous. I am not exaggerating when I say that I didn’t enjoy one minute of the story. I was slightly interested during the first half hour only because I wanted to understand what the movie was about, but nothing after that. The only good thing about ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ is that it’s undeniably beautiful. Other than that, this is one really awful production.

But I can forgive all that. You know, many films out there drag, many films out there have awful structure, and many films our there are boring. But you know what I can’t forgive? The casting. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne make this movie a thousand times worse than it already is and I simply cannot overlook the fact that the acting in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ has some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen in a feature film.

It is a freaking disgrace. I cannot accurately explain to you how pissed I am at Luc Besson. Acting is such an important part of any production. You can have good direction, a good script, amazing cinematography and editing (all things this particular films doesn’t have, but whatever), but if the actors suck, all that goes to hell. Let me just visualize to you exactly how important good acting is with a short bullet list:

• Good acting makes a film energetic, bad acting makes it dull.
• Good acting makes characters real, bad acting makes you feel as if you are watching an unscripted sketch your classmates did on the playground when you were in third grade.
• Good acting makes the story more intense as you understand the stakes through the characters, bad acting makes everything uninteresting and boring.
• Good acting make you feel as if what you are watching is real, bad acting makes you fully realize you are watching something fictional.
• Good acting brings up emotions in you and invests you in the story, bad acting puts you to sleep.

Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are absolutely awful in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’. They make the film so much more worse than it already is. All those things listed as ‘bad acting’ in the list above are at place in this production. And this pisses me off so much because it could have been easily avoided.

I understand those specific actors were chosen for marketing purposes. Actually, scratch that, I understand why Cara Delevingne was chosen, I have no idea what Dane DeHaan is in this movie. I doubt anyone will want to see this movie specifically because the guy who plays Green Goblin in the second ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movie is in it. But you know, Dane DeHaan isn’t terribly bad in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’. He is pretty bad and definitely has a lot to work on, but he was at least watchable. My main problem is with freaking Cara Delevingne.

Again, I absolutely understand the reasons behind her being in this film: people see her face and name on the poster and because she is famous (for what exactly though, being a Victoria’s Secret model like five years ago?) the public will pay to see the film. I understand that. It’s still ridiculous though.

What, there are no other good actresses in Hollywood? You mean to tell me that out of all even remotely famous actresses, the only one who wanted to play Sergeant Leureline is Cara Delevingne? Didn’t think so. Even if Luc Besson casted the ex-model for marketing purposes that still doesn’t make it okay; he could have easily casted some other famous actress that is, unlike Cara, good.

Same goes for Dane DeHaan. He’s not as bad as the ex-model, but he is not very good either. So why not cast someone who is also an established actor, but unlike Dane DeHaan would have made something interesting with the role? Something worth you time even maybe? I really have no idea what Luc Besson was thinking casting these two. This could have been easily avoided and that could have made the movie at least some bit more watchable.

Now, I’ve been going on and on about how I hate the acting in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’, but you are probably wondering why. Why was the acting so truly bad? It’s not because Dane DeHaan and CaraDelevingne didn’t stay true to their characters and it is not because what they did in the film is extremely easy for any real actor. Actually, the main reason is because they are both just so lazy in this movie. They contain no energy and constantly act as if they have absolutely no desire to be there. They make every scene extremely slow and lazy precisely because they are extremely slow and lazy. And when every scene drags to this extent, the whole movie becomes an unpleasant experience.

The best actor in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ was Rihanna. Freaking Rihanna. Just let that sink in. The singer Rihanna is better than the two leads. That is absolutely ridiculous.

Nathalie Cheron was the casting director for ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’. I looked her up, turns out she was the casting director for ‘Taken’ and ‘Lucy’, both films with pretty great acting. I don’t understand why she and Luc Besson f****d up so badly in this movie. Dane DeHaan is not very good and Cara Delevingne in particular makes the movie a thousand times more unwatchable than it already is (pun intended). ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ is a bad production and you should not waste your time to watch it. The only reason to do so would be if you are curious to see what really bad acting in a big-budget movie is.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Have you seen ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’? What did you think of it? What did you think of the acting? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, please. Also, don’t forget to LIKE and SHARE this article if you enjoyed it and SUBSCRIBE to Our Movie Life.

As always, thank you so much for reading,

Pouty Boy

Tags: acting, bad acting, cara delevingne, dane dehaan, luc besson, model, valerian, valerian and the city of a thousand planets