Losing the plot after a promising start

ET tu, Luc? Not content with his previous contributions to the sci-fi genre - including the likes of The Fifth Element (1997) and Lucy (2014) - writer-director Luc Besson's latest space opera is the gloriously whimsical Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It's a space oddity of sorts, based on a 1960s French comic book series and borrowing unashamedly from milestone films like Star Wars (1977) and Avatar (2009).

The result is a candy-coloured action adventure featuring a pair of 28th-century government agents who travel through space and time maintaining order, battling aliens and storm troopers and saving each other in missions impossible. As always, there's plenty of time for silly romantic banter between the guardians of this particular galaxy.

The film has its roots in Valerian and Laureline, a popular comic book series that was published for over four decades (its final instalment was in 2010) and Besson has been working to bring it to the big screen for several years. Think Han Solo and Princess Leia as space cops and you begin to get the picture. Even Valerian's spaceship bears more than a passing resemblance to the Millennium Falcon - all that's missing is a wookiee named Chewbacca.