Cara Delevingne

Cara Delevingne is going from Enchantress to just plain enchanted. Amazon and Travis Beacham’s Carnival Row has its second major name after adding Orlando Bloom, now that the Valerian and Suicide Squad star has booked a supernatural role.

No movie this summer will leave your jaw on the floor and your eyeballs as wide as saucers like Luc Besson’s latest will. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the latest from the French filmmaker, is a dazzling feast of spectacular visuals and exhilarating set pieces. It’s the most original big-budget adventure you’ll see on screen this season and Besson at his most ambitious. But such ambition doesn’t always come without its flaws.

Everything’s gone haywire this summer at the box office. Big studio-fronted franchise movies are faceplanting, creator-driven products without brand-name stars are raking it in, nobody knows which way is up, and it’s only the second week of June. As with every other facet of life in 2017, it appears that anything goes at multiplexes nowadays, so hey, who’s to say that Luc Besson’s bananas-looking Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets won’t be a smash? The trailers have promised something between the colossal fantasia of The Fifth Element and the CGI wonderland of Jupiter Ascending, and I, for one, am here for it.

Luc Besson has already dropped two fantastic trailers for his new space opera, but the final trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the most jaw-dropping yet. The first look looked super fun, and second trailer, which I was lucky enough to watch twice in 3D in theater before chatting with Besson himself, was totally dazzling. But this third trailer secures the Fifth Element filmmaker’s latest project as one of the most anticipated movies of the summer.

Could this be the year that Bruce Willis is the key to cinematic universes? M. Night Shyamalan recently announced that he would be making a crossover sequel for both Unbreakable and this year’s Split, and with Luc Besson’s upcoming sci-fi film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets about to hit theaters, more than a few people  —  myself included  —  have wondered if Valerian would make any passing references to Besson’s The Fifth Element. Another small cameo by Bruce Willis at the end, and suddenly he’s the man holding two separate franchises together.

When you sit down for a new Luc Besson space opera, what do you expect? Tons of glowing aliens? Flying cars racing through futuristic cityscapes? Heroes jumping between moving vehicles while being chased by monstrous creatures? If so, then make sure Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is on your most anticipated list.

Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looks like The Fifth Element with the voltage cranked up 5 notches. The new movie has more aliens, more special effects, and looks even wackier than the 1997 sci-fi classic. The second trailer for the film debuts online tomorrow, but we got a sneak peek at the footage and caught up with Besson and his star Dane Dehaan earlier this week.

If you loved The Fifth Element (and honestly, who doesn’t?) then you’ll be excited for the latest sci-fi visual creation to pop out of the mind of Luc Besson. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looks even more wacky than that 1997 sci-fi adventure based on the first trailer.

2017 is already shaping up to be a much more promising year for big studio blockbusters than 2016. In addition to the newly-titled Blade Runner 2049, we’re getting the Wolverine sequel (titled Logan), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming. For less conventional blockbuster fare, there’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Luc Besson’s long-developing sci-fi epic, which now has an official poster (along with a few new images).

When a movie gets bad reviews, it must mean something is wrong with the critics, right? Those darn critics, they don’t like anything!