THE FIFTH ELEMENT
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1997 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Rating: *** (Maltin scale)
French director Luc Besson's films ("La Femme Nikita," "The Professional") have often favored style over substance. With "The Fifth Element," Besson does his previous entries one better, sacrificing narrative coherence for a visually remarkable future world that leaves you breathless, if a little confused.
It's no surprise that the film looks so good. French comic book creators Moebius and Jean Claude Mezieres guided Dan Weil's impressive production design, and iconoclastic fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier is responsible for the outrageous costumes (although one might argue that the carrot-haired Milla Jovovich displays a strategic *lack* of costume in several of her scenes).
The story, on the other hand, is one that Besson himself threw together as a teen.
Bruce Willis plays Korben Dallas, a New York cabbie who's reluctantly recruited to save the world by securing the mysterious fifth element. Part of the puzzle emerges in the form of Jovovich's bio-engineered supreme being, Leeloo, who drops into Dallas' airborne taxicab and provides new definition to the phrase "a perfect fare."
In this classic and classy Good vs. Evil yarn, ubiquitous British bad-guy Gary Oldman plays corporate despot Zorg. Oldman churns out yet another of his puffed-up madman roles, sporting an American drawl that renders most of his dialogue unintelligible. Zorg's lizard-like alien henchmen vie with Dallas to unearth four sacred stones--representing earth, wind, fire, and water--which, when brought together with a fifth element, can either save the world or destroy it, depending on what side of the universe you woke up on.
This 23rd-century actioner culminates at Fhloston Paradise, a intergalactic cruise ship of sorts, emceed in living color by Chris Tucker's effeminate Prince-ly pop diva, Ruby Rhod. How Besson worked him into this script is anyone's guess, although his hysterical mincing and shrieks of "Oh my God!" get funnier with age, especially during one of the bigger shoot-em-up sequences.
Ignore the hokum that is at the center of this film and marvel at its eye-popping sets, outrageous costume designs, and down-to-earth performances from Willis and Jovovich. While the logic of the storyline leaves a lot to be desired, "The Fifth Element" satisfies as sheer spectacle.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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