My takeaway: " For my part, instead of giving this movie a grade, I would call it aggressively mediocre for “Immortan Joe Declaration” values thereof. The movie screamed “WITNESS ME!”, and that is my only response."
Informative, and goes into more details than the others I've seen, especially on the comic comparison.
It feels like it's a shame it's not closer to the comics, those seem better from what I've heard.
In short: Budget too big, leads lacked starpower draw, advertising didn't tell well enough where it landed on the SF spectrum, and didn't play up the weirdness enough.
As à French recent viewer who had read some Valérian comics since childhood...
I loved the aesthetics.
I loved all the alien encounters (and, yes, the "grab a jellyfish" arc is the closest part to the original comics). The shingouz are awesome.
I absolutely hated the acting and the dialogs, that aren't helped in French by a dubbing that went for "edgy bored emo teenager whose life is so full of pain they actively refuse to care for anything" for both our protagonists. I was literally ashamed for the movie crew when Laureline delivered her "actually it's about love in diplomatic relationships" speech at the end.
I truly disliked that Valérian and Laureline had been made into violent badasses who don't care and don't look at explosions. Valérian should think he is one but be very bad at it and care much more than he would want, and Laureline should care very much and be passionate about it. And violence shan't be their first solution.
The red-light district, Rihanna's number and the space war were far too long and clearly indulging.
In short, it was a feast for the eyes and torture for the ears.