director
Luc Besson
screenwriters
Luc Besson
Robert Mark Kamen
producer
Patrice Ledoux
cinematographer
Thierry Arbogast
music
Eric Serra
editor
Sylvie Landra
cast
Bruce Willis (Korben Dallas)
Gary Oldman (Zorg)
Milla Jovovich (Leeloo)
Ian Holm (Cornelius)
Chris Tucker (Ruby Rhod)
Luke Perry (Billy)
Brion James (Munro)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 126m
u.s.
release: May 9, 1997
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
other luc
besson films
reviewed on this website:
- the
professional
|
A
rip-off movie can be annoying and boring unless it's done with
great love and enthusiasm, in which case we call it a pastiche
or an homage, or some other French word. In The Fifth Element,
the director Luc Besson is like a little boy showing off all
his cool toys. He doesn't care that he didn't make the toys himself
-- he just wants to play with them. The movie is a gigantic Christmas
tree festooned with flashing lights and intricate ornaments,
with a million presents underneath.
Its ominous ads aside ("IT MU5T BE FOUND," etc.), The
Fifth Element is really a comedy -- a sci-fi Cuisinart that
nudges you past the point of saturation. As in his previous two
cult movies (La Femme Nikita and The
Professional), Besson straddles the line between straight-faced
thrills and Mad-magazine parody. One thinks of Nikita
stashing her rifle in a bubble bath, or the assassin in The
Professional enthralled by a Gene Kelly movie. Besson's films
have an oddball personality; they're not just grim heavy-metal
thunder.
Besson concocted the plot as a teenager, and it shows. Most critics
have had a tough time outlining what The Fifth Element
is actually about in a point-A-to-point-B sense, and I won't
be the exception. The gist of it is that a big wad of Evil is
threatening the universe, and the only one who can avert disaster
is a genetically reassembled woman called Leeloo (the entrancing
Milla Jovovich). She is "the fifth element" that needs
to be positioned between the other four elements, which are represented
by mystical stones from Egypt, and .... So what exactly was
Besson smoking in high school?
Anyway, Leeloo falls into the airborne taxi of Korben Dallas
(Bruce Willis), a 23rd-century hack who used to work for the
government as some sort of secret agent. The government hires
him to protect Leeloo; it also arranges -- are you sitting down?
-- to send the pair on a vacation cruise on a ship called Fhloston
Paradise. This plot turn is an excuse for Besson to indulge in
outlandish costumes and cartoonish violence. It also introduces
a character named Ruby Rhod, an aggressively irritating DJ who
follows Korben everywhere, bleating and squealing. He's played
by Chris Tucker, who almost derails the movie all by himself.
The Fifth Element, as you may have gathered, makes no
sense whatsoever. It's a triumph of form over content, but it's
a stunning triumph. The sets, costumes, and visual effects are
elaborate but never too oppressive -- Besson casually tosses
them off. Willis, in his appealing Die Hard mode, and
the bewitching chatterbox Jovovich (who spends half the movie
babbling in an alien tongue) keep the human element alive. Then
there's the incomparable Gary Oldman, consistently hilarious
as the evil bureaucrat Zorg. Oldman was given far too much scenery
to chew and saliva to spew in The Professional, but his
performance here is a goofball classic. The biggest laugh in
the movie by far is Zorg's priceless reaction when he opens a
box that turns out not to contain what he hopes it does. Oldman
isn't even the weirdest thing in The Fifth Element, which
must be a first. |
