Fifth Element
You know it can be said that the science fiction movie genre is in a rut when it gets to the point that literally everything looks the same with its dark spaceships, the blackness of space and (more often than not) the dystopian view of the future that is presented which makes looking forward to what is to come not exactly the most enticing proposition. In 1998, French director Luc Besson at least made an honorable attempt to rectify much of that with this little opus produced and filmed almost entirely in Europe (and which was the most expensive non Hollywood production made up until that time) which more often than not featured bright colors and a world that permeated more of a sense of fun rather than doom and gloom, not to mention the awesomely offbeat casting of Tom (Zeus) Lister as The Galactic President which makes Besson probably the only director who would ever cast the legendary big man in such a role so you know that he must be doing something right (and Zeus acquits himself very well too). The film begins with a short prologue taking place during an archaeological dig in Egypt circa 1918. It helps to lay out the basic formation of the plot and also features a near useless cameo by Luke Perry before we jump 300 years into the future, a reality where aliens and humans appear to interact on a regular basis and President Zeus has just been faced with a major crisis where one of his military ships has encountered a seemingly lifeless black planet which nonetheless after being fired upon, has apparently frozen the ship and its crew in place (even after President Zeus has told them to get out of there) before utterly destroying them in some kind of demonic black cloud. Fortunately, President Zeus has as one of his advisors an elder priest (another legend in Ian Holm) whom (based upon the events in 1918) knows exactly what is going on with this entity and even produces documented proof to show that he knows what heâs talking about. In a nutshell, the evil black planetâs coming has already been foretold as an end all, be all force of destruction that will wipe out all life in the universe as we know it unless a special group of stones combined with the abilities of a perfect, supreme being wipes out the evil planetâs powers and thus stops it in its path of destruction. Now even though this is a future world where contact with countless other planets has been made and thus godlike aliens are entirely within the realm of possibility (think the first season of Star Trek), President Zeus stupidly sends Holm on his way (even though Holm insists that he is their designated contact person on Earth) and decides to have his military figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, a highly revered alien species who in fact ARE the supreme beings with the means to save mankind (although itâs never made very clear whether they are ALL considered as supreme beings or that just one of their members is in particular possibly through genetic engineering) are about to land on Earth when they are attacked and shot down by another, more war mongering species. The only surviving lifeform (which happens to be that perfect, supreme being) is revived in a regeneration chamber and turns out to be the ethereal Milla Jovovich with orange hair. She escapes the government facility only to fall into the floating (all vehicles in this time fly just like in the Back To The Future sequels) taxi cab of one Korben Dallas (star Bruce Willis) a former military special operative who decided to take on a more menial line of work instead. Willis immediately falls in love with the interloper and who can blame him? Her body is perfect, her eyes are luminous and she has a pout that just wonât quit. Even better, she babbles in an incoherent stream of consciousness (âthe divine languageâ) that Willis doesnât understand at all but he really doesnât care since heâs just content to sit there and look at her. Eventually, he takes her to Holmâs priest and even though Holm tries to run him off, it becomes clear that Willisâ military training and chemistry with Jovovich (whose name of course turns out to be Leeloo) makes him ideal to act as both sidekick and protector of her over the course of the mission. Naturally, when some of Willisâ old military contacts bring up his name for the military operation to retrieve the missing stones (having long since blown off Holm and not realizing that Willis is already on the mission having hooked up with Leeloo in a contrived plot point), he is recruited back out of retirement to once again save the world as we know it. Meanwhile, the evil black planet has contacts of its own, namely billionaire industrialist Zorg (Gary Oldman) whom it actually speaks to over the phone under the alias âMr. Shadowâ and actually appears to have convinced Oldman (who surely must know what this thing will do to him and everybody else once it arrives unless he is convinced that he will be âsparedâ instead) that it is worth his while to assist this thing, hiring the warlike alien species for mercenary work to find the stones and following a falling out with them, actively competing with the same species to obtain the stones in order to gain the favor of Mr. Shadow. Oldmanâs performance is hard to get a grasp on, wearing an impressive yet bizarre looking outfit complete with a clear plastic plate over the top of his skull and even stranger, sporting a corny Southern accent that is laid on so thick it threatens to take the viewer completely out of the movie every time he comes on. Oldman reportedly based the character and his way of speaking on Ross Perot but the irony is that with the war mongering aliens (who can morph into having a more humanoid look to them) and the fiery black planet of death on hand, it appears that the movie has got more than its fair share of villains and that unbelievably a great actor like Oldman appears to be the odd man out as he really comes off as being an added unnecessary bad guy which is a point proven by the fact that his character never even crosses paths with Willisâ hero not even for an exchange of words much less a final showdown of any kind. Finally, once our heroes get to the resort paradise planet where the main action takes place (complete with an alien opera singer), we get Chris Tucker (a guy who at least was smart enough to grasp that his personal comedic style was an acquired taste and retired from the industry once he had made a tidy little fortune rather than getting himself rammed down everybodyâs throats otherwise) as âradio personalityâ Ruby Rhod, a guy who is so over the top manic that we start to wonder whether he too is an alien or rather just a coked up wanna be version of Prince or Michael Jackson. While Tucker doesnât quite steal the movie, his high pitched schtick at that time was still fresh to most audiences and thus he brings life into the movie without wearing out his welcome especially in the way that he too gets drawn into the all important mission at hand. So what we have here is Bruce Willis doing what he does best which is playing Bruce Willis, Ian Holm playing very well a much more understated character amongst the madness, Tucker taking advantage of the fact that audiences hadnât quite learned to hate him yet, Gary Oldman playing a non essential villain but yet still managing to be entertaining whenever heâs given something to do onscreen and then there is Milla Jovovich in what is by far her most popular and beloved screen role (much moreso than in the endless Resident Evil movie sequels which she got sucked into) while playing the character of Leeloo in such a way that she practically had the word âfranchiseâ written all over her but unfortunately that was not to be (unlike Resident Evil) as Besson would decide not to move forward with any sequels since it turned out that he had originally written the script and story with the intention of making it a trilogy only to completely condense it into one movie (and the mashed up overflow of plot threads and characters shows this to be true). But what we do get here is sumptuous production design and costumes, CGI that manages to look beautiful and not offend the viewerâs intelligence, some wild and crazy action scenes and a sometimes disarming sense of humor that keeps one invested in the story (even on repeat viewings) and reminds us that this is SUPPOSED to be a fun film with a nutty, over the top premise and for many reasons other than that this remains almost a rather unappreciated and underrated science fiction classicâŚ
8/10