Luc Besson

Luc Besson

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French Filmmaker Luc Besson Accused Of Rape By Actress


Luc Besson

French director Luc Besson is being investigated by police in Paris after having been accused of rape by an actress.

According to Europe 1 radio, which was the first outlet to report the story, 59 year old filmmaker Besson allegedly drugged the unnamed female star before sexually assaulting her. Reports suggest she “drunk a cup of tea, then felt unwell and lost consciousness”, and when she came round she remembered being sexually assaulted.

The incident is reported to have taken place at the Bristol hotel in Paris, and the complainant is said to have been in a relationship with Besson for around two years, and allegedly felt compelled to be intimate with him for professional reasons.

Continue reading: French Filmmaker Luc Besson Accused Of Rape By Actress

Luc Besson Felt Destined To Make Valerian


Luc Besson

It's been 20 years since Luc Besson made his outrageous genre-changing sci-fi adventure The Fifth Element. And now he has returned to space with a passion project, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. He feels like he's been preparing for this movie his whole life.

Luc Besson on the set of ValerianLuc Besson on the set of Valerian

"I discovered Valerian at 10," he laughs. "At the time, I had one TV channel in black and white at home, no internet. These two pages every week in my little fanzine were all I had to escape with Valerian and Laureline, two space agents travelling through time and space and kicking alien butts!"

Continue reading: Luc Besson Felt Destined To Make Valerian

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Review

Good

It's been 20 years since French filmmaker Luc Besson shook up the sci-fi genre with his inventive adventure The Fifth Element, and now he's back at at again with this adaptation of the popular comics by Pierre Cristin and Jean-Claude Mezieres. The film is a blast of visual animation, with a wildly over-complicated story involving time and space. It's all rather messy, but there's plenty of comedy and adventure to hold the interest, plus some offbeat romance and a hint of present-day politics.

It's set in the 28th century, when the human-created mega-city Alpha has travelled across the universe and is now home to beings from a thousand worlds. Valerian (Dane DeHaan) is a security officer working with his bickering partner Laureline (Cara Delevingne) to retrieve illegal contraband. After a mission on a desert planet with parallel dimension issues, they return to Alpha with haunting information about a lost civilisation, which seems to be at the centre of a secret war Alpha's Commander (Clive Owen) is waging. Amid a complex power struggle, Valerian and Laureline head into a no-go sector of Alpha to find out what's going on, getting help from a chatty pimp (Ethan Hawke), a submarine pirate (Alain Chabat) and a shape-shifting pole-dancer (Rihanna).

Besson fills the nearly two and a half hour running time with outlandishly colourful effects, lively action and lots of verbal banter, but not so much character development. Only Valerian and Laureline emerge as fully formed people, even as they conform rather oddly to gender expectations that are old fashioned today, let alone 700 years in the future. So their tetchy romance is enjoyable but rather aimless. Meanwhile, Rihanna has some strong moments once she stops dancing and changing costumes like she's in a music video. And Sam Spruell and Kris Wu make a solid double act as Alpha officials trying to work out what's going on.

Continue reading: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Review

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - Trailer and Featuette


Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are partners. Skilled government agents whose job it is to protect the human race and uphold the law on an intergalactic basis, they defy orders to seperate when they are sent by their commander Arün Filitt (Clive Owen) to visit a utopian city named Alpha. Housing 17 million residents of every alien species in the known universe, it's a sprawling metropolis where creatures of all races share their varied knowledge and their skills and help each other in creating the most technologically advanced and peaceful place in existence. However, the fact that Valerian and Laureline are on their way there means that something evil is afoot; somebody wants to destroy the cross-cultural harmony and threaten the safety of all races not just in Alpha, but in every corner of the universe.

Continue: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - Trailer and Featuette

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer


For Luc Besson's latest foray into the sci-fi stratosphere, he has decided to bring the popular graphic novel 'Valérian and Laureline' to life in a screen adaptation; Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne have been cast in the lead roles of Valerian and Laureline respectively.

A remix of The Beatles' much loved track 'Because' from their 1969 classic album 'Abbey Road' can be heard sound tracking the trailer.

Set thousands of years in the future, Valérian and Laureline journey far and wide around the universe at the behest of the government in charge of the human territories. Their mission is to keep the peace and make sure order is continually maintained. Valérian can't help but be enamoured by  Laureline obvious beauty and strong mentality but she is hesitant toward his advances and tries to keep their relationship as professional as can be.

Continue: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer

Cara Delevingne Gets Feisty In Luc Besson's 'Valerian' Trailer


Luc Besson

BAFTA nominated French filmmaker Luc Besson follows up his 2014 film 'Lucy' with the electric sci-fi crime thriller 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets'. The stunning first trailer has just been released and it already feels very 'Fifth Element'. Plus, it introduces Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in starring roles.

Valerian cast[L-R] Dane DeHaan, Clive Owen and Cara Delevingne in 'Valerian...'

Based on the French graphic novel series 'Valérian and Laureline' by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, the story follows two badass government agents named Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) who travel through time and space protecting the human race and upholding the law across the universe. 

Continue reading: Cara Delevingne Gets Feisty In Luc Besson's 'Valerian' Trailer

Rihanna Joins Forces With Cara Delevingne In Forthcoming Luc Besson Film


Rihanna Cara Delevingne Luc Besson

Rihanna and Cara Delevingne are proving that they are taking this transition into acting very seriously indeed, by starring alongside each other in an upcoming science fiction epic. 'Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets' is being directed by Luc Besson and is coming to theaters in 2017.

RihannaRihanna is returning to the big screen

While London model Cara has been doing her damn hardest to convince the world that acting is her biggest passion in life, despite her extensive work in the fashion industry, Rihanna has also been coasting along and getting involved in Hollywood - though her busy music-making schedule hasn't made it easy. So far she's only had cameos in 2012's 'Battleship' and 2013 comedy 'This Is the End' and one main role as the voice of Tip in the animated film 'Home'. But now she's taking it to the next level by landing an as yet undefined role in time-travelling sci-fi adventure 'Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets'.

Continue reading: Rihanna Joins Forces With Cara Delevingne In Forthcoming Luc Besson Film

The Transporter Refuelled Review

Good

Like James Bond, wilfully anonymous driver Frank Martin is reborn as a new actor without any fuss, shifting the tone of the franchise from Jason Statham's knowing wink to Ed Skrein's stone-faced glower. But even though the new film is a lot less camp, it's still deliriously preposterous, pinging between dimwitted dialogue and jaw-droppingly silly action. It's utterly inane, but never dull and often very funny, sometimes intentionally so.

Skrein's Frank is still based on the French Riviera, where he has three simple rules to ensure plausible deniability about whoever or whatever he carries around in his shiny, seemingly indestructible Audi (product placement alert!). Then he's contacted by high-class hooker Anna (Loan Chabanol), who has escaped from her Russian mafioso bosses and is out for revenge. She hires Frank to carry her and a mini-UN of angry ex-prostitutes (Gabriella Wright, Tatiana Pajkovic and Wenxia Wu) to a variety of heists aimed at top Russians, with their final sites on kingpin Karasov (Radivoje Bukvic). When Frank balks at this, the women kidnap his father (Ray Stevenson) to force him to comply, and soon both dad and son are in the middle of the action themselves. Chases in cars, motorbikes, planes and boats ensue, as gangsters shoot at them and the police try to catch them.

Basically, this is a series of elaborately staged set-pieces held together by the bare hint of a plot, as this quartet of scantily clad women take on the macho thugs who have enslaved them. In the middle, Frank looks like a model in his sleek suit, while his dad provides some comical relief. It never makes much sense at all, and the action sequences aren't particularly well staged, relying on lots of slow motion to make everything look achingly cool. But there's a level of inventiveness in the mayhem that keeps us watching, as well as laughing along with everything that happens.

Continue reading: The Transporter Refuelled Review

Luc Besson Casts Cara Delevingne For Sci-Fi 'Valerian'


Cara Delevingne Luc Besson

Luc Besson's next movie will be an adaptation of the graphic-novel Valerian, with Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan in the lead roles. The French director's action-thriller Lucy earned in excess of $450 million last year.

Luc BessonLuc Besson has cast Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan in Valerian

Based on the hugely popular French book series, Valerian will follow an 11th century peasant girl and her time-travelling companion. The movie will be written and directed by Besson and produced by his wife Virgnie Besson Silla. Production is set to begin at the end of the year with a global release slated for summer 2017.

Continue reading: Luc Besson Casts Cara Delevingne For Sci-Fi 'Valerian'

Taken 3 Review


Weak

As with the first two films in this dumb but bombastically watchable franchise, writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen seemingly put no effort into writing a script that can even remotely hold water. This is such a boneheaded story that it boggles the mind, eliciting laughter every time it tries to show some emotion or menace. But watching Liam Neeson charge around on a personal mission, cleaning up the criminal underworld in the process, is still rather good fun.

Back home in Los Angeles, former super-spy Bryan (Neeson) is trying to re-bond with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) while waiting for his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) to leave her sweaty but wealthy husband Stuart (Dougray Scott) and come back to him. But this dream is cut short in a twisted act of violence that leaves Bryan as the prime suspect. With Inspector Franck (Forest Whitaker) on his tail, Bryan traverses the city trying to unknot the mystery and find out who the real villain is, so he can clear his name and protect his family. With the help of an old pal (Leland Orser), Bryan manages to taunt and elude the cops at every turn while tracking down the nasty Russian mafioso Malankov (Sam Spruell). But something is clearly not right here.

Instead of centring on one far-fetched kidnapping, pretty much every character in the story gets "taken" at some point in the movie. The film benefits from this break in the formula, creating a relentless pursuit that runs right through the story. So even if the details never remotely ring true, and even if most scenes feel badly contrived, it's thoroughly entertaining to watch Neeson's stand-in stuntman leap across backyard fences or drive like a maniac on the freeway, causing mass carnage in his wake. Sadly, director Olivier Megaton directs and edits the film by chopping scenes into splinters, then reassembling them so they make no sense at all. It's loud and fast and incomprehensible.

Continue reading: Taken 3 Review

Luc Besson

Luc Besson Quick Links

News Video Film Quotes RSS

Luc Besson

Date of birth

18th March, 1958

Occupation

Filmmaker

Sex

Male

Height

1.73


Luc Besson Movies

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Movie Review

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Movie Review

It's been 20 years since French filmmaker Luc Besson shook up the sci-fi genre with...

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer

Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are partners. Skilled government agents whose job it...

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Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets Trailer

For Luc Besson's latest foray into the sci-fi stratosphere, he has decided to bring the...

The Transporter Refuelled Movie Review

The Transporter Refuelled Movie Review

Like James Bond, wilfully anonymous driver Frank Martin is reborn as a new actor without...

Taken 3 Movie Review

Taken 3 Movie Review

As with the first two films in this dumb but bombastically watchable franchise, writers Luc...

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The Homesman Movie Review

The Homesman Movie Review

Strong characters and a vivid sense of life in frontier America give this film a...

Lucy Movie Review

Lucy Movie Review

Luc Besson gleefully combines two of his favourite movie elements - fit women and wildly...

Lucy - Luc Besson Featurette Trailer

Lucy - Luc Besson Featurette Trailer

The cast and crew of 'Lucy' - actors Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman and Amr Waked,...

3 Days to Kill Movie Review

3 Days to Kill Movie Review

French filmmaker Luc Besson continues to combine family themes with intense violence (see Taken), but...

Lucy Trailer

Lucy Trailer

Lucy was just a regular girl living in Taipei, Taiwan before she was brutally kidnapped...

The Family Movie Review

The Family Movie Review

Despite a promising trailer and a great cast, this French-American comedy-thriller is a complete misfire...

The Family Trailer

The Family Trailer

Giovanni Manzoni is a gangster boss who has been placed under witness protection by Agent...

Taken 2 Movie Review

Taken 2 Movie Review

There wasn't really anywhere for the story to go after 2008's surprise hit Taken, and...

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