Love finds a way but sometimes maybe it would be better if it didn’t even try to.

For all I liked in this movie how did they get the chemistry between the two leads so wrong? Okay, I’ll back up and break this down a bit more.

I liked the feel of this movie. The plot was nice. It’s a space movie that isn’t a generic space western or “we went somewhere with confident bravado and now the alien race of hunters is going to kill us” or about one or two people overcoming being alone in space. Was it amazingly written? No. Was the plot enjoyable? Yeah, refreshingly so. It didn’t feel like a movie written to justify a romance or to support a romance main dish.

Unfortunately, the romance was the only real drawback. Valerian, played by a kid I’ve never seen anywhere named Dane DeHaan, and Cara Delevingne, who really needs to pick better roles if she plans to make this acting thing work, had sibling level chemistry. Not siblings in a “they know each other so well” kind of way but siblings in a “we told siblings to act like they were in love and it was awkward as heck”. The movie would have been stronger and my verdict on the performances would have been more positive if it had just been the stellar friendship the movie started with.

I will say, I enjoyed Rihanna in this. Sure, it was a bit of a stereotypical role for her but she #nailed it. Bubble was a big highlight of the movie.

I’d love to see this as a multi-part tv special where they dig into the relationships more and build up the romance or as another attempt at the movie without the romance so they can spend that time on the main story.

Verdict: 3/5, going into it with low expectations definitely helped but it was nice