THE FIFTH ELEMENT
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Columbia) Starring: Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker. Screenplay: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Producer: Patrice Ledoux. Director: Luc Besson. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (brief nudity, sexual situations, violence, profanity) Running Time: 127 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw
Here, I had thought to myself as I watched a television spot for THE FIFTH ELEMENT, may be the acme in hyperbolic idiocy. In one of those exclamation point-filled critical blurbs which tend to accompany pre-release advertising, someone was touting THE FIFTH ELEMENT as "STAR WARS for the 90s." I could only shake my head, especially considering it had only been a few months since we had actually seen STAR WARS for the 90s. Then I saw THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and I was forced to acknowledge that, in a perverse way, the statement was completely accurate. Like STAR WARS, THE FIFTH ELEMENT is essentially a fairy tale, an archetypal Good Vs. Evil story dressed up in high-tech trappings. And like many films of the 90s, it's so busy and loud that the compelling elements in the story tend to get lost.
In a prologue set in 1914, we learn the secret of the mysterious "fifth element." It is a weapon created a benevolent alien race called the Mondoshawan to protect humanity from an evil force which threatens the universe once every 5000 years. In 2259, it is time once again for the Mondoshawan to deliver the weapon, but their ship is downed by agents of the sinister industrialist Zorg (Gary Oldman). Only one key to the weapon survives, a tissue sample which is replicated to produce a mysterious woman called Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). When Leeloo flees the authorities, she ends up in the back seat of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a retired military man now driving a cab. Dallas becomes infatuated with the strange and beautiful passenger who seems to be on everyone's most wanted list, little expecting that his connection with Leeloo will lead him into a battle in which the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Whatever else one might say about THE FIFTH ELEMENT, you have to give this to Luc Besson: there is nothing he won't try to keep the audience watching. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is a blitzkrieg of images, moods and messages which never lets up and never gives you a chance to get bored. Scenes of multi-level 23rd century air traffic provide a vertiginous backdrop for chase scenes; the production design and costumes (by Dan Weil and Jean-Paul Gaultier, respectively) are ablaze with color. Comic relief is provided by Ian Holm (as a cleric entrusted with the protection of the fifth element) and Chris Tucker (as a flamboyant radio personality), as well as by periodic phone calls from Dallas' kvetching mother. You've got your good aliens, your bad aliens (the shape-shifting mercenary Mangalores), your sex (enough to push the PG-13 envelope), your violence (ditto) and your romance, all tied up in a big shiny anti-war message before the finale.
If that sounds like a lot to take in, that's only because it is. As undeniably entertaining as individual moments in THE FIFTH ELEMENT may be, the film never feels like a cohesive narrative with a distinctive sense of place. The most memorable creations of fantasy and science fiction, from THE WIZARD OF OZ to BRAZIL, created worlds which were not just unique but uniquely real -- every place, character and event were of a piece. Besson doesn't create that kind of world, one where you feel transported to somewhere you've never been. There are plenty of vivid details in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, like Dallas' one-room-does-all apartment and an airport filled with garbage, but they don't add up to anything truly intriguing. Things happen for the sake of a momentary laugh or gasp rather than for the creation of the film's internal universe. It's not a specific future; it's The Future, impressive but generic.
It's nice to have sly performers like Willis, Oldman and Holm on hand to make THE FIFTH ELEMENT's relentlessness somehow forgivable. Milla Jovovich also does sharp work as Leeloo, doing a riot grrl spin on Daryl Hannah in SPLASH. Indeed, there are enough of the right elements in THE FIFTH ELEMENT that you can't help but wish that they had been put together better. This is a story about heroes, villains and the battle between Good and Evil where the hero's quest is unclear, the real villain is given just enough personality to make one threatening phone call, and the climactic battle is over in a literal and figurative flash. THE FIFTH ELEMENT moves, all right, but it moves frantically, like the wired mugger who accosts Dallas in one of the film's more amusing scenes. I kept thinking about how that character might have written THE FIFTH ELEMENT after an all night bender of Jungian mythopoetics and the 23rd century upper-of-choice. That's "STAR WARS for the 90s": Joseph Campbell on crack.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 elements: 6.
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