Subject: REVIEW: THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Marty Mapes)
Date: 26 Jun 1997 16:31:39 GMT

THE FIFTH ELEMENT
                       A film review by Marty Mapes
                        Copyright 1997 Marty Mapes

*** (out of 4)  The trailers for The Fifth Element make it look like it
tries very hard, perhaps too hard, to be cool and stylish. The
futuristic setting and the backflipping scraggly girl invite a
skeptical comparison to Blade Runner.

In fact, the movie does have some elements of Blade Runner. It also has
some from Die Hard, Brazil, Star Wars, and Stargate. It sounds like a
big confused jumble, but actually it has its own internal consistency
and look. It is almost immediately engaging and engrossing.

After an introductory scene in Egypt, 1918, the movie jumps to the 23rd
century.  A black hole of Evil threatens humanity. Attempts to destroy
this Evil with force result in the growth and strengthening of the evil
body.

Four stones from the early Egypt sequence, plus a perfectly engineered
human, the Fifth Element, are needed to banish the darkness and death.

The good aliens, the golden robot ducks, are the keepers of the stones
and of the Fifth Element. When they learn of humanity's impending doom,
they come to the aid of the Earth, bearing these five components. On
their way to Earth, they are shot down by the the evil mercenary
aliens, "destroying" the stones and the Fifth Element in the fiery
wreckage.

The human government is able to salvage a piece of the Fifth Element
from the wreckage and regenerate the perfect human using DNA from the
mummified and stone-encased piece of shrapnel. The human reincarnated
from the Fifth Element is Leeloo, and she escapes from the clutches of
the scientists so she can go off in search of the priest she's been
programmed to find.

She falls into the arms of Corben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a
down-on-his-luck space cab driver, an ex-space military man kicked out
of the space army who now lives alone with his cat. (In the last Besson
film, The Professional, the hero lived alone with his plant.). The two
end up on a search for the stones so that they can vanquish the evil
black hole.

Working against them is Jean-Baptise Emmanuel Zorg (that's
John-the-Baptist, Jesus, Zorg, played by Gary Oldman), who wants to
steal the stones and use them for evil and darkness. (Chaos is better
for the economy, you see.)

The plot sounds rather ridiculous, but The Fifth Element is so engaging
and has such integrity of style, that I was never bothered by the
cartoonishness of the plot.  This is a positive example of solving a
problem by throwing enough money at it.

Several factors make this movie much better than it sounds. First, the
visual elements of this movie are interesting, and the filmmakers went
all out. The sets are great (the scientist's chamber), the costumes are
great (the police officers, the aliens), the special effects are good,
and these are cartoonish by the same amount as the plot, which allows
them to cohabitate in the same movie.

Second, this movie is good, fun, escapist entertainment. The movie has
a little humor and camp -- not too much to distract from the action,
but enough to keep you watching for little jokes. If you haven't seen
it yet, pay attention to Dallas' cigarettes, or look for visual
"quotes" from Star Wars. There are lots of clever details packed into
the movie.

Finally, the editing (by Sylvie Landra) was superb. Besson and Landra
used some cross-cutting techniques both to cleverly link scenes and
also to transition from one scene to the next. The cross-cutting (as
well as the "regular" straight cutting) kept the movie's pace nice and
brisk.

The one factor that nearly everyone disklikes about this movie is the
character Ruby Rhod (played by Chris Tucker -- rhodamine is another
shade of red).  Ruby is a flamingly shrill, annoying DJ, ten times
worse than Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh combined. Many people say the
movie would have been better without him, and I'd have a hard time
disagreeing.

Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see a science fiction movie with
space scenes and interesting aliens that is not part of some
established Star (fill-in-the-blank) series or based on some
pre-existing comic book. Apparently, Besson wrote the story for The
Fifth Element when he was a teenager, and he is just now coming back to
it.

This movie is not as heavy as Blade Runner or as insightful as Brazil,
but incorporates a lot of the more fun elements from both. The result
is a movie that's less substantial than either, but a lot more fun.

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