The Fifth Element (1997)
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The Fifth Element (1997)
The Fifth Element begins in 1914 Egypt. This 10-minute segment features Luke Perry, late of the TV show Beverly Hills 90210, as a clumsy schlub. Strange aliens show up at a pyramid, stating to a priest that war is coming. They leave him a key (the priesthood there has been serving the aliens for generations, it's mentioned). Then the story skips to about 300 years in the future. This told me that our present times are not very important by the standards of this film; the important stuff happens in the past and in the 23rd century.
This is the vision of Luc Besson, perhaps the most famous French director of the late 20th century. He'd had this story percolating in his mind since he had been a teen. The central character is a 23rd century cab driver played by Bruce Willis; he becomes the unlikely hero. Gary Oldman is the villain, after the element for his own reasons. Ian Holm is the latest priest. Milla Jovovich, in her first big role, is some kind of ultimate genetic being - oh, wait, she is the element.
Besson likes to fill his movie with unusual characters and this would work well if they weren't so annoying and over-the-top. Jovovich is fine with her strange alien language and accent, but Oldman also puts on his own weird accent, while Chris Tucker, as a future version of a TV celebrity, is nearly unwatchable, behaving as if he's always on 50 cups of coffee (or some other drug). There is also stuff going on that doesn't really advance the story, merely showing off Besson's skill at visuals or staging of the characters doing their thing.
Others who have seen this and aren't big fans say that they can't really see a point to this story. There is a 'ball of evil' which is flying through space and heading for Earth and if it reaches it, I guess that means the end of everything (or, all will go to darkness, some such thing). I'm thinking the evil globe is a sci-fi version of Satan, the ultimate evil. If so, it's not that innovative. Overall, I'm thinking Besson had all this visual stuff in his head, like the 23rd century version of New York, but he wasn't able to produce a full start-to-finish narrative.
Others opine that this is all a parody of the usual space opera (since Star Wars); if so, it's a case of the actors having different views of what kind of movie they are in: Oldman does act like it's a parody, but Willis plays it straight - there's even a try at lyricism when Willis watches a futuristic opera performance. It may be telling, though, that the hero & villain never actually come face to face. There are also a lot of different types of aliens which actually gets a bit tiresome by the conclusion - sometimes more is not necessarily better. Other characters are the President of everything (played my cast-against-type big "Tiny" Lister) and a general played by Brion James. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
Besson likes to fill his movie with unusual characters and this would work well if they weren't so annoying and over-the-top. Jovovich is fine with her strange alien language and accent, but Oldman also puts on his own weird accent, while Chris Tucker, as a future version of a TV celebrity, is nearly unwatchable, behaving as if he's always on 50 cups of coffee (or some other drug). There is also stuff going on that doesn't really advance the story, merely showing off Besson's skill at visuals or staging of the characters doing their thing.
Others who have seen this and aren't big fans say that they can't really see a point to this story. There is a 'ball of evil' which is flying through space and heading for Earth and if it reaches it, I guess that means the end of everything (or, all will go to darkness, some such thing). I'm thinking the evil globe is a sci-fi version of Satan, the ultimate evil. If so, it's not that innovative. Overall, I'm thinking Besson had all this visual stuff in his head, like the 23rd century version of New York, but he wasn't able to produce a full start-to-finish narrative.
Others opine that this is all a parody of the usual space opera (since Star Wars); if so, it's a case of the actors having different views of what kind of movie they are in: Oldman does act like it's a parody, but Willis plays it straight - there's even a try at lyricism when Willis watches a futuristic opera performance. It may be telling, though, that the hero & villain never actually come face to face. There are also a lot of different types of aliens which actually gets a bit tiresome by the conclusion - sometimes more is not necessarily better. Other characters are the President of everything (played my cast-against-type big "Tiny" Lister) and a general played by Brion James. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
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