Review: The Fifth Element (1997)

The Fifth Element

Rating

Director

Luc Besson

Screenplay

Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Length

2h 06m

Starring

Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker, Luke Perry, Brion James, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister Jr.

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Review

The 1990s was a terrific decade for science fiction. The Fifth Element was among those films, giving audiences a crazy, outlandish feature that helped define how sci-fi comedies should be handled for Gen X audiences and for those who love the work targeted at them.

The film opens as an archaeologist uncovers an ancient set of pictograms. As he’s attempting to figure out its meaning, a group of aliens arrive and kill him taking the keys to a weapon that will stop a Great Evil that emerges every five-thousand years.

Far in the future, ex-special forces officer Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) ends up with a young Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) falling through his cab roof. Along with a priest (Ian Holm), they travel by space cruise ship Fhlostan Paradise seeking an opera singer who can tell them where to find the other four elemental stones to help Leeloo defeat the Great Evil before it can wipe out countless worlds.

Director Luc Besson was hot off his celebrated Léon: The Professional and seven years after his breakthrough La Femme Nikita, but tackling a sci-fi comedy seemed like a left-field choice for the action director. His prior successes were all the help he needed to redefine the genre and provide richly texture action sequences blended with a pounding techno score, an operatic adaptation of Lucia di Lammermoor, and enough tight, parallel editing to enthuse even young cinephiles.

Willis was on a high following his 80s and early-90s successes and brought that same effortless charm to Korben. While it was a pretty simple performance, it stood out well against Jovovich’s naïve act that fits her limited acting potential well. Holm is wonderful as always and Gary Oldman brought humorous menace to his corporate villain Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg while Chris Tucker was vivacious, though occasionally annoying, as flamboyant talk show host Ruby Rhod.

The hyper colorful design work allows the film to pop visually, giving the audience bountiful amounts of eye candy and plenty of immersive sensitivity. The dry, dusty opening gives way to the decadent squalor of New York City, and then to the opulent splendor of Fhloston Paradise. The design aesthetic from production design to the costumes makes one wonder why the Academy didn’t give the film more love. It was a technical marvel and Sound Effects Editing was not the only place it should have been recognized.

While there have been many films like this one, Brazil being an obvious comparison, it’s too bad more haven’t reached the level of success this film did. Even Besson couldn’t return to this pinnacle and that’s a shame. While his subsequent films have been as visually stunning, none have had to the overarching quality of compelling screenplay, solid acting, and zeitgeisty energy. The Fifth Element might feel sometimes like an antiquated relic of the 1990s, but nothing could be farther from the truth. It still holds up incredibly well nearly 30 years later, though my memory may be clouded by having seen it in its initial release in 1997.