fifthelement

Luc Besson is an interesting director. I often find it refreshing to see a European sensibility on
storytelling, even if I don’t necessarily enjoy the film I am watching. “The Fifth Element” is one of
those movies for me. I’m not a huge fan of the movie, but I appreciate what Besson puts there.
When entering the realm of science fiction, always a tough genre to excel in, Besson put his best
foot forward and created a unique work, if not always the most effective.

In the future, Bruce Willis plays a cab driver named Korben Dallas. Dallas is a former soldier just
trying to scrape out a living in the world. It’s a dirty future of massive cities and flying cars in layers
upon layers of traffic. While on duty one day, Milla Jovovich ("The Messenger") literally falls into his
taxi. She’s just escaped from a government facility and Dallas takes her to see a priest, played by
Ian Holm ("The Lord of the Rings"), whose sect has kept the secret of the Fifth Element safe for
millennia. Apparently, this girl named Leeloo, played by Jovovich, is the Fifth Element that, when
combined with the other four will save the Earth from a nebulous approaching “Evil” that is destined
to destroy them unless the elements are combined at the right time.

Gary Oldman ("Leon: The Professional") plays Zorg, a corporate opportunist who sees the coming
Evil as a good thing for his munitions company. With his band of alien cronies, he hopes to stop
Dallas and Leeloo from finding the four elemental stones and saving the Earth.

The film has a number of cheesy missteps in the plot and because the story is based on broad
mythological ideas, there isn’t any easy way to cover these up with extra details. First off, I hate the
name “Leeloo.” There could have been a better choice. I can’t take that seriously. Secondly,
Chris Tucker in one of his earliest roles plays the drag queen Ruby Rhod, the most obnoxious fruit
in the universe, and even though he’s supposed to be that kind of a character, he makes my
fingernails grow just watching him.

Every role aside from Willis’ character is completely overblown. Holm is goofy and bumbling, the
aliens are goofy and bumbling and Oldman’s Zorg has this ridiculous pomaded hair and an accent
so strange I can barely understand what he’s saying. Willis has some good lines and he deals with
the action sequences in grand “Die Hard” style. There is also a great scene on an intergalactic
cruise liner in which an alien diva sings this eerie vocal opera, which is all kinds of impressive, both
in the visuals and the singing.

I guess I just can’t sit back and nod my head appreciatively that Leeloo will save the universe
because she is the embodiment of love. Yes, it’s idealistic and pure and mythological, but the
movie is so jaded yet cheesy up until that moment that when it comes time to suspend disbelief and
buy that little lynchpin, I found it impossible to accept it.

What makes this film wonderful is a unique aesthetic philosophy from Besson and his crew. The
sets are bright and intricately styled and each location is distinctly different, even when a sense of
geography tends to be troublesome for the viewer.

“The Fifth Element” tries very, very hard to be shallow with the jokes and equally hard to be deep
with the plot. It’s still an above average flick, but the narrative schizophrenia works against its
intentions.