THE FIFTH ELEMENT
A film review by Bennett Nason
Copyright 1997 Bennett Nason
Well, I've been lurking a bit here reading the posts on T5E, and have only one thing to say...
If you have time, *get out to see it!!*
It seems that many people are analyzing/understanding the movie incorrectly. The movie, as many people state, isn't meant to be serious (despite the message that love has extraordinary power at the end, which I kinda' liked...) It has a *ton* of humor in it, which is one of the most decisive factors in favor of this movie. I couldn't help but laugh all the way through the scene with the Father and Zorg (not to disclose too much here, but the funny looking alien thing with the long nose and the little robots were too much, not to mention Ruby and Zorg in general...)
In addition, the special effects were simply dazzling... the visual artistry within this movie is deserving of much merit. The label of "eye candy" that is applied to it isn't in my mind fair. To call this film "eye candy" would be like calling the Mona Lisa "eye candy", something I hope all reading this would understand to be too simplistic. The scenes of NY and the multi-layered traffic scenes are absolutely breathtaking. (As a disclaimer, I'm not comparing T5E to the Mona Lisa... just drawing an analogy of sorts...)
As far as the script and acting go, I'm more or less convinced that it is so-so. However, I enjoyed throughly the performances of Oldman (Zorg), Ruby, and thought that Jovovich did a damned cool job of playing Leeloo. However, I don't go to movies to gaggle and drool over good acting - if that's what I want, I go to stage performances. The two mediums are meant for different things, and you'll find many mroe talented **ACTORS**, in the purest sense, on stage, not on screen. Screen actors have to perform differently, and they more or less didn't detract from this movie.
So, in the end, I think that the movie is a success, in that it delivers all it is meant to. It isn't meant to be th most fabulous movie of all time - it is meant to entertain and do so well. In that regard, I didn't get bored once, but stayed entertained and more all the way through.
-Bennett Nason
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews