THE FIFTH ELEMENT
A film review by Cameron Shelley
Copyright 1997 Cameron Shelley
(Columbia)
Review by:
Cameron Shelley -- May 21, 1997.
Review URL:
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~cpshelle/Reviews/tfe.html
Cast:
Bruce Willis (Korben Dallas), Gary Oldman (Zorg),
Milla Jovovich (Leeloo), Ian Holm (Victor
Cornelius), Chris Tucker (DJ Ruby Rhod)
Screenplay:
Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Director:
Luc Besson
Producer:
John Alan Amicarella, Patrice Ledoux, and Iain Smith
The Fifth Element is a hard movie to pin down. Perhaps the best way to describe it is as a collage of sights and events organized (if that is the word) around the mission of an unlikely hero to save the world. For me, at least, watching TFE had the quality of a daydream, or the fantasies sparked in adolescent years when reading a comic book. Like a daydream, the sequence of events makes little sense upon later reflection, and like an adolescent fantasy, the characters are drawn from a small stock of simple and familiar types.
But it is the "sparky" aspect of TFE that is most obvious. Scenes, jokes, and plot devices fly off energetically and disappear in almost all directions. This is probably what has prompted so many reviewers to compare TFE to nearly every other science-fiction movie they've seen. Certainly, TFE does have a kind of borrowed look. The hovering cars are reminiscent of Blade Runner, the glowing ball of evil and the cabbie hero of Heavy Metal, the Egyptian aliens of Stargate, the farcical police of Brazil, and on and on. Plenty of action-adventure cliches get screen time as well - although I think the 3-D car chase scene was pretty good and deserves credit for originality. But Besson seems neither to parody nor plagiarize these earlier films. TFE is simply a pastiche of their more obvious attributes. If you consider collage to be good art, then TFE could be appealing; otherwise it will probably seem to be just pointlessly contrived. My own view is somewhat in between: I don't get the impression that Besson is just rehashing used material from the genre, but neither does his profligate use of such material seem coherently ironic or tongue-in-cheek. To a large extent, it is all just there.
In any case, Besson does his borrowing pretty well. The scenery, gizmos, and aliens are generally lively and eye-catching. The costumes too are interesting and appropriate. The inscrutable and somewhat maladroit aliens, the Mondoshawan, have big, clunky environment suits to stomp around in. The belligerent (and stupid) Mangalores dress and act like rhinos, at least when not in disguise. And the bizarre talk-show host, Ruby Rhod, looks and talks like a sped-up version of Prince with his hair on amphetamines. And, of course, there are many gorgeous women in various states of dress and undress. These characters, and the special effects associated with them, succeed in holding the viewer's attention and interest while on screen.
Generally, the acting is also good in the sense that it is energetic and appropriate to the task. Jovovich, in fact, puts on a good performance as Leeloo, the genetically perfect human sent to Earth by the Mondoshawan to save it from the big evil ball from another dimension. Her role is one of the naive innocent thrust into a fallen world she naturally doesn't understand, which she delivers with a sort of girlish enthusiasm. Gary Oldman also deserves credit for a deftly greasy turn as the evil industrialist Zorg, who is in cahoots with the evil ball itself (we know this because the ball gives Zorg a phone call, calling itself "Mr. Shadow"), while Chris Tucker goes "over-the-top" portraying the shrill and mincing Ruby Rhod. At the center of all this is the character of Korbin Dallas, as mailed in by Bruce Willis. Willis's performance is often flat (as opposed, say, to understated), a problem which may be caused by the similarity of Korbin to most other characters Willis has played since Moonlighting. Whereas TFE's other borrowings are generally superficial and lightly handled, Willis's self-plagiarism comes off as plodding, at least when there are no babes or firefights to distract attention from him.
The roughest point of the movie, though, concerns the plot. Certainly, action-adventures aren't supposed to be intellectually challenging, but the plot of TFE is inexplicably arbitrary even for its genre. Every 5000 years, a big evil ball shows up and menaces the Earth. Every 5000 years, the Earth is saved from the evil ball by the benevolent Mondoshawan, using the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire, and a mysterious Fifth Element (Leeloo). But the Mondoshawan change the plan, with the result that in 2300 they fail and humanity must be bailed out by genetic engineering and a heroic cabbie. No motivation for these intricacies is offered, nor do they make much sense in retrospect. Well, the Mondoshawan do actually offer their motivational motto, "Time is nothing, life is most important," (here they sound like ad men for Pepsi) upon arriving three hundred years early, killing an Egyptologist for knowing too much, and then taking off with Earth's only means of defense. Yeah, thanks. Attempts to moralize intrude awkwardly from time to time, as when Zorg nearly chokes to death on a cherry, or when Leeloo learns about "war" and suddenly wonders if humanity is worth saving. Fortunately, Korbin saves the day by declaring his love for Leeloo. Oddly, Besson seems to really want to make a meal of this last-minute complication, but only gets well-deserved snickering from the audience. TFE does alright in the use of the future to parody the present, but it can hardly claim to be an exploration of serious issues such as war, love, or the rather suspect notion of "perfection" in genetic engineering either.
TFE is carried by its energy and surface appeal, but it is a precariously thin surface. Having borrowed so heavily from other works, Besson risks having his film already eclipsed by its predecessors as well as its successors. The next big effects-driven, science-fiction picture may indeed finish the job. As Bruce Willis said, in reacting to some negative reviews of TFE, "The written word is going the way of the dinosaur." Presumably, then, the next picture with an even larger ratio of effects budget to writing budget will be even better!
cpshelle@watarts.uwaterloo.ca - Phone: (519) 888-4567 x2555
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