I saw it. It is the lower end of good as there are some heavy caveats.
Firstly, the story is very 60s-ish/70s-ish... the main update seems to have been to make the leads younger (which in case of Valerian doesn't work). This means there is a heavy anti-nuclear proliferations message hiding in there. Also the sci-fi terminology is a bit stuck in this centre of the atomic age terminology (e.g. the ammount of energy in Planet Mül's energy pearly is measured in megatons).
Secondly, the story is not very deep. There are elemtent that carry on form start to finish and they come neatly together in the end, but there is nothing you can't seem to see kilometers ahead if you just keep your head in the game.
Thirdly, as said before the main update seems to have been to age-down the leads (in comics as I understand it Valerian and Laurelei are mid-30s which in the movie they are late-to-mid-20s). This makes for nice side-gags but also comes crashing down in the end.
Fourthy, the whole deal with the Pearl people is also very 60s/70s-ish as it cringeworthy noble savage down to a single letter of definition. I heard discussion about how the portrails is also culturally insensitive but had not had the time to go into that debate.
But that said, it is visually very interesting and varied (though, there is a stark contrast for purposes of keeping the story light, which shows just what audience this is geared towards). The opening sequence which shows the grow of Alpha as well as the main the exposition sequence about Alpha some 1/3 into the movie are visual treats (even if the second one get bogged down with narration).
The entire section of the movie set in Big Market is also awesome and some of coolest in-concept sci-fi recently.
As I said, I liked it. But maybe moreso as it is not another drap "all civilisation will end" entry in genre. (If I am asking for optimism, you know things are bad)
The trailers were not helpful in explaining what was going on and the leads look super uninterested to be there. I will not be checking it out.
Good plan. The male lead is infuriating.
Luc Besson as a director never seems to be interested in directing his male leads. You can see it in his entire corpus of work that (much like many other male directors) he clearly is more interested in showcasing his female leads and they are are constinently better casted, directed and shot.
In it, according to Woutersmits, there's a cool-looking fighter, as well as destroyers and cruisers. These are the ones that he and I want to model.
That seqeunce are about 5 minutes at the end.