(CNN) A feast for the eyes and positively numbing on the brain, "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" makes an early bid for worst movie of the year -- or at least, the most ostentatious waste of money, given the lavish trappings of this comic-book adaptation from French writer-director Luc Besson.

Visually sumptuous, Besson has approximated the scale of a "Star Wars" epic, albeit one wholly populated by versions of Jar-Jar Binks. Filled with colorful aliens and completely drab human characters, it's as if the Cantina scene somehow got mashed-up with the campy spy hijinks of the "Our Man Flint" movies.

Set a half-millennium in the future, the movie stars Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline, two wisecracking agents who spend the whole movie engaging in painfully flirty banter -- with him trying to convince her that he's shed his womanizing ways and is ready for a commitment.

"This is going to be a lot of fun," Laureline deadpans as they head into a perilous situation, a bit of sarcasm that proves prescient given what follows.

To be fair, the actors' performances are largely drowned under the psychedelic mayhem surrounding them, but even so, it's a photo finish in this setting regarding who has less charisma or chemistry.

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