DJ Ruby Rhod: What was that honey? It was bad. It had no fire, no energy, no nothing. So tomorrow from 5 to 7 will you PLEASE act like you have more than a two word vocabulary. It must be green.
Korben Dallas: Can I talk to you for a second?
[Throws Ruby up against a wall]
Korben Dallas: I didn't come here to play Pumbaa on the radio. So tomorrow from 5 to 7 your gonna give yourself a hand, green?
DJ Ruby Rhod: Supergreen.
Here, I had thought to myself as I watched a television spot for THE FIFTH ELEMENT, may be the acme in hyperbolic idiocy. In one of those exclamation point-filled critical blurbs which tend to accompany pre-release advertising, someone was touting THE FIFTH ELEMENT as "STAR WARS for the 90s." I could only shake my head, especially considering it had only been a few months since we had actually seen STAR WARS for the 90s. Then I saw THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and I was forced to acknowledge that, in a perverse way, the statement was completely accurate. Like STAR WARS, THE FIFTH ELEMENT is essentially a fairy tale, an archetypal Good Vs. Evil story dressed up in high-tech trappings. And like many films of the 90s, it's so busy and loud that the compelling elements in the story tend to get lost.
In a prologue set in 1914, we learn the secret of the mysterious "fifth element." It is a weapon created a benevolent alien race called the Mondoshawan to protect humanity from an evil force which threatens the universe once every 5000 years. In 2259, it is time once again for the Mondoshawan to deliver the weapon, but their ship is downed by agents of the sinister industrialist Zorg (Gary Oldman). Only one key to the weapon survives, a tissue sample which is replicated to produce a mysterious woman called Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). When Leeloo flees the authorities, she ends up in the back seat of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a retired military man now driving a cab. Dallas becomes infatuated with the strange and beautiful passenger who seems to be on everyone's most wanted list, little expecting that his connection with Leeloo will lead him into a battle in which the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Whatever else one might say about THE FIFTH ELEMENT, you have to give this to Luc Besson: there is nothing he won't try to keep the audience watching. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is a blitzkrieg of images, moods and messages which never lets up and never gives you a chance to get bored. Scenes of multi-level 23rd century air traffic provide a vertiginous backdrop for chase scenes; the production design and costumes (by Dan Weil and Jean-Paul Gaultier, respectively) are ablaze with color. Comic relief is provided by Ian Holm (as a cleric entrusted with the protection of the fifth element) and Chris Tucker (as a flamboyant radio personality), as well as by periodic phone calls from Dallas' kvetching mother. You've got your good aliens, your bad aliens (the shape-shifting mercenary Mangalores), your sex (enough to push the PG-13 envelope), your violence (ditto) and your romance, all tied up in a big shiny anti-war message before the finale.
If that sounds like a lot to take in, that's only because it is. As undeniably entertaining as individual moments in THE FIFTH ELEMENT may be, the film never feels like a cohesive narrative with a distinctive sense of place. The most memorable creations of fantasy and science fiction, from THE WIZARD OF OZ to BRAZIL, created worlds which were not just unique but uniquely real -- every place, character and event were of a piece. Besson doesn't create that kind of world, one where you feel transported to somewhere you've never been. There are plenty of vivid details in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, like Dallas' one-room-does-all apartment and an airport filled with garbage, but they don't add up to anything truly intriguing. Things happen for the sake of a momentary laugh or gasp rather than for the creation of the film's internal universe. It's not a specific future; it's The Future, impressive but generic.
It's nice to have sly performers like Willis, Oldman and Holm on hand to make THE FIFTH ELEMENT's relentlessness somehow forgivable. Milla Jovovich also does sharp work as Leeloo, doing a riot grrl spin on Daryl Hannah in SPLASH. Indeed, there are enough of the right elements in THE FIFTH ELEMENT that you can't help but wish that they had been put together better. This is a story about heroes, villains and the battle between Good and Evil where the hero's quest is unclear, the real villain is given just enough personality to make one threatening phone call, and the climactic battle is over in a literal and figurative flash. THE FIFTH ELEMENT moves, all right, but it moves frantically, like the wired mugger who accosts Dallas in one of the film's more amusing scenes. I kept thinking about how that character might have written THE FIFTH ELEMENT after an all night bender of Jungian mythopoetics and the 23rd century upper-of-choice. That's "STAR WARS for the 90s": Joseph Campbell on crack.
By : Scott Renshaw
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 4
Most science fiction movies, good or bad, have a single look and set of characters that they use throughout the entire production. But not Luc Besson's THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Every five minutes, some totally new character or special effect is introduced. This makes for a highly involving and mesmerizing film. Although the film is incorrectly being marketed as the "STAR WARS for the 90s," it does have some of the imagination of the STAR WARS saga. Where it differs, is that THE FIFTH ELEMENT never takes itself very seriously.
The current trend among filmmakers is to engage in a battle with the studio's finance department with the filmmakers' goal being to spend the maximum amount possible on special effects. Whether the effects are worth the money becomes irrelevant; the effects become an end in themselves. THE FIFTH ELEMENT puts some sanity in this trend by spending every penny wisely, producing some of the most dazzling effects in a long time. If you are envisioning a depressing BLADE RUNNER motif for Besson's vision, think again. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is described in the press kit as showing a non-apocalyptic future, and Dan Weil's sets are suitably colorful and inviting.
Typical of the innovativeness is its rendering of traffic in a big city in the year 2259. Rather than heavy traffic on the one street level, the airborne cars operate on numerous but carefully controlled parallel logical surfaces. Keeping the ROGER RABBIT looking taxis in line, are police cars with the cops in Jean-Paul Gaultier's uniforms reminiscent of RoboCop.
Among all of the visual spectacles is a story and some excellent acting as well. Bruce Willis, who can be terrific but has been in so many dogs like COLOR OF NIGHT that I have begun to dread seeing his name on the marquee, plays the starring role of the taxi driver and ex-government agent Korben Dallas.
One day, a newly made woman with orange mop hair and some Band-Aid strips for clothing drops into Korben's cab, and I do mean drops. She speaks only a sing-song style of language that baffles Korben. ("I only speak two languages," he tells her, "English and bad English.") Her name is Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), and she has just been created from a strand of DNA from the remains of an alien spacecraft. In 48 hours a fireball of evil will consume the world unless she, being the perfect fifth element, and stones representing the other four are combined in some long lost temple.
The screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen has enough complexity to make following it somewhat of a challenge, but never so much as to lose the audience. Working through it becomes an interesting diversion, but all eyes stay glued to the screen to see what will happen next. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is more a feast for the eyes than the mind.
The film is filled with cartoonish shoot-'em-up violence, Willis, as one of many shooters, plays a much more lovable character than he does in the DIE HARD series. His enjoyment of his character transfers easily to the audience. The chemistry between Korben and his sidekick Leeloo pulsates with comedic and romantic energy.
Beautiful Jovovich speaks with a Yoda-like, sparse syntax. ("Me fifth element," she reassures Korben. "Supreme being. Me protect you.") With her quirky mannerisms and speech, Jovovich steals most of her scenes.
Gary Oldman plays Zorg, the leader of the bad guys on planet earth. His has a deal in progress with the thing about to destroy the planet. Oldman plays his part as total camp. With a heavy southern accent, he spouts one aphorism after another, including the classic, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
The funniest character in the entire movie is the black transvestite and talk show host Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker). Ruby Rhod with his leopard skinned dress, his cylindrical hairdo, and non-stop mouth provides a perfect complement to the fast paced action.
All of the details, right down to the barbecuing of the ugly little parasites on the spacecraft before the flight, are carefully orchestrated with maximum imagination. The press kit says that Besson first got the idea for the story when he was a teenager and has been developing it ever since. I believe it. The result overflows with energy and creativity.
