Finally I find the time and the attention span to sit and watch the whole thing from beginning to end.
Today's post is about The Fifth Element.
First released in May 1997, The Fifth Element was directed by Luc Beeson and stars Bruce Willis as a 23rd century cab driver who has to save the Earth from an alien threat.
Prologue
The year 1914
The place: an ancient temple in Egypt.
This is the site where the alien Mondoshawans meet their contact on Earth, a priest of a secret order.
From the temple, the aliens remove a weapon capable of defeating a great evil. The weapon consists of the four classical elements, as four engraved stones, plus a sarcophagus containing "the fifth element".
(Hey, that's the name of the movie!)
Let's jump ahead to the 23rd century in OUTER SPACE!!
The great evil appears!!! It destroys an armed Earth spaceship as it heads to Earth. The Mondoshawans' current human contact on Earth, priest Vito Cornelius, informs the President of the Federated Territories of the great evil's history and the weapon that can stop it.
On their way to Earth, a Mondoshawan spacecraft carrying the weapon is destroyed by alien mercenaries hired by gazillionaire Earth industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
He's working with the great evil. It's what gazillionaire industrialists do.
A severed hand of one of the Mondoshawans is recovered and taken to a bio lab where it is regrown into a humanoid woman named Leeloo. Alarmed by waking up in an unfamiliar lab on an unfamiliar world, Leeloo makes a run for it, jumping out of what turns out to be a very tall building and lands in a flying taxi driven by Korben Dallas.
Yay! Bruce Willis has arrived in the movie!
What we get here is Bruce Willis doing what Bruce Willis does, evincing an average every man vibe while kicking ass like the average every man can't.
Having Bruce Willis providing a sense of normalcy is important in a movie with Luc Beeson's flights of fantasy, ranging from an overbuilt megalopolis, ornately designed space ships and aliens who look genuinely otherworldly.
We saw Luc Beeson's strange and epic vision of space travel and the future in Valerian & The City Of a Thousand Planets in 2017.
Milla Jovovich as Leeloo has to perform in an outfit made of bandages and speaking in gibberish until she assimilates English. It's an extraordinarily athletic role and Leeloo is endearing and charming even as she kicks all sorts of ass.
As a counterpoint to Willis as Korben Dallas, all around solid normal good guy, we get Gary Old man as Zorg with a predilection for outlandish attire and an unplaceable accent. Zorg is everything that Korben Dallas is not: wealthy, powerful and influential... and also a shallow empty shiny shell that only looks like vaguely human.
Chris Tucker as Ruby Rhod should annoy me and he does but I find it hard to really hate the guy. A flamboyant, hypersexed multi-media influencer, he screeches and preens like a coked up peacock but his reactions to being under fire from alien marauders can be funny but also normal. If armored aliens started shooting oversized guns at men, I might scream like a girl too.
The main appeal of The Fifth Element is Luc Beeson's bizarre and ever expanding vision of a runaway future and an escoteric colterie of aliens and sci-fi tech.
The Fifth Element is elaborartely design and over the top in an almost campy way. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, well, your mileage may vary.
Me, I'm glad I finally got the see the whole damn thing and rather enjoyed this wacky sci-fi extravaganza of bold excess.
No comments:
Post a Comment