Notes from a bibliophile

They say history is written by the victors. By all accounts Dunkirk should have been a defeat. It's history, so I can rest assured that I won't be accused of spoiling anything here. So if you haven't heard, during World War II the Brits and the French got pinned down by the Germans at Dunkirk, trapped between the advancing army, which would eventually temporarily divide France in two, and the English Channel. Dunkirk is pretty close to England, but it's not the closest point, that would be Calais. Anyway, according to the film, 400,000 men were trapped on that beach, sitting ducks for the Luftwaffe. The harbor was too shallow to allow the destroyers that could carry many more men to get anywhere near enough to pick them up, so they had to rely on somewhat smaller boats that could sidle up next to a long pier to load the men and carry them out to the destroyers waiting in the channel. The Germans fired on those ships, killing the men and attempting to blockade the harbor...

I want to start off by saying Luc Besson is one of my favorite directors. I can watch The Professional or The Fifth Element all day long. When I saw he was directing Valerian, my heart skipped. The trailers were stunning and they just made me so anxious for the film to come out, which is I suppose their point. But I think it was too much. I set the bar much higher than the film was ready to go. I understood early on in the viewing that this was not the film I was expecting it to be, and tried to sort of reverse course and view it for what it was. I don't think I succeeded. I will need to watch it again, and knowing what I know now, hopefully I can find the film stands on its own merits. So let's discuss those merits. The film is still visually stunning. The little creature that's at the center of the story is so adorable, I can't wait till CGI develops to the point that I can have one of my own (oh, it's coming...just wait). The plot is relevant, and the story i...