Such imagination! Luc Besson's VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS arrives

For those of us who've loved Luc Besson's earlier work -- La Femme Nikita, The Professional, The Fifth Element and Lucy -- the chance to see this filmmaker bounce back with another imaginative gem is too good to pass up. Bounce he does, and then some. His new VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS is a delightful, if a little too lengthy, adventure that puts the leaden and repetitive garbage of the Star Wars franchise to utter shame. It's ever so light on its feet, full of amazing visual effects and wonderfully weird creatures, even as it leads us into and through a hugely involved narrative so easily and richly that we follow along, lapping it up like the happy puppies we moviegoers remain when confronted with a space-travel/kids-adventure movie this clever and enchanting.

M. Besson (shown at left), bless his naughty little heart, also has some fun for the more sophisticated adults on hand. Take his sequence featuring Ethan Hawke as a space-age pimp, and Rhianna (shown below) as his most special "girl." Here, the latter shape shifts into just about every good-old-fashioned heterosexual male fantasy -- from school-girl to nurse to bondage queen and lots more -- and yet the movie remains so good-natured and welcoming that it never comes near betraying its deserved PG rating. (The violence, too, is distanced and quick; no wallowing in blood and gore here.)

And if the movie's plot is the usual piffle, its theme -- protecting all species and living in harmony (that's what the titular "City of Thousand Planets" is all about) -- is always worth considering.

The leading actors -- Dane De Haan and Cara Delavigne (above) - are just fine as sparring partners and would-be lovers, while Clive Owen (below) makes a perfectly nasty, irredeemable villain.

But it's the vast and amazing array of those other "species" that makes the movie so much fun. As adapted by Besson (from the French comic book by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières), the screenplay introduces each of these bizarre wonders and then spends just enough time with them so that we understand what they're about and what they need to accomplish -- before moving on to the next delight.

This makes the movie bounce along with surprising energy and incident, and just at that moment prior to our saying, OK enough, we're already on to another bit of wonderment. There are so many of these oddball creations that I'll just mention a couple here: the greedy, talkative trio of know-it-alls (above) who land our hero and heroine in and out of trouble, and the aggressive, non-stop alien "attack dog" (below) who gives our twosome quite the clever chase.

Especially lovely is the planet and its inhabitants (two photos below) who set the movie in motion and help conclude it in the kind of feel-good fashion that will please the kids, while providing the lovely beach (shown at bottom) where our twosome may someday honeymoon, if they're lucky.

Interestingly enough, neither Valerian nor his Laureline are anything approaching super-heroes. They are simply very good at what they do, while making the best use of the current technology at hand.

Consequently, I fear, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is simply too smart and too creative for our current dumbed-down audiences (and critics, too), not to mention our cretinous Trump followers who will demand much more violence and hatred than is on display here. (Besson's film is clearly pro-immigration.) So the movie may come and go without making much of a splash now. But like so much of M. Besson's work, it will linger to find an increasingly appreciative audience over time.

From STX Entertainment and running 2 hours and 17 minutes, the movie opens just about everywhere tomorrow, Friday, July 21. To see about a location near you and/or tickets for same, simply click here.

New on Netflix Streaming, the don't miss -- for its costumes, cars & colors alone -- POPULAIRE

Seeing Régis Roinsard's magical POPULAIRE a second time (my original review is here) simply increased my appreciation for and enjoyment of what may be the most beautiful movie of the year, certainly so far as set design and art decoration are concerned. The Great Gatsby? Forget that piker. This is the movie to revel in visually. While perusing what was new to the foreign film catalog on Netflix streaming last night, up came this title -- which only recently appeared in theaters. Since my spouse hadn't yet seen it, we clicked immediately on "play" and settled in for this 111-minute delight. I swear: the movie looked better on our big-screen TV in high definition than it looked in theaters.

The amazing colors pop all over the place, and perusing the wonderful and various sets will make you appreciate how incredibly on-target were those who designed and accessorized here. For me, the absolute highlight of the film is a night club scene in which the band plays a song about secretaries, while their outfits in bright blue against the orange background, make for a riot of contrasting colors used as well as I've ever seen them. This may sound silly and way too specific, but for the manner in which M. Roinsard has designed his film, this particular scene hits the jackpot--& then some.

There are plenty of other memorable moments visually, but fortunately, they're not nearly all the movie has on offer. Watching its three leads -- Romain Duris (above, left), Déborah François (above, right) and Bérénice Bejo (below) -- at work and play proves even better the second time around. All three are simply wonderful in this tale of a young girl (François) who wants more than life in her quiet little town can provide and so goes to the larger town next door, is hired as a secretary, and, becasue of her rather extraordinary talent for fast typing, is soon entered into one contest after another by her boss (Duris), while getting piano-lesson coaching from his best friend/confidante (Bejo).

It's an odd tale, certainly -- who knew about typing contests? -- but one that allows the filmmaker to do just about everything he wants in the way of beauty, storytelling and entertainment. It's like taking a vacation back a half-century in time with a bunch of truly charming characters. I reviewed this one once already when it opened this year's Rendez-vous With French Cinema, but its sudden stream-ability and re-viewing makes me realize what a rare treat it truly is.

So, for those of you who can stream Netflix -- which now has some sort of exclusive contract with The Weinstein Company, who distributes the movie here in the States -- see it soon.