Luc Besson's Joy is Infectuous

Rating: 8/10 (5 October 2008)

Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg. Luc Besson deserves a medal for that name. Take the two most beautiful names from a language priding itself on elegance and add the ugliest one-syllable name ever concocted. Monty Python would have loved using it. It would have been as classic "Mr. Smoke-too-much," and "Sir Robin the Cowardly." An ingenious name does not make a movie by itself, but this one sums up Besson's brilliance. His world 250 years in the future has enough creativity for ten movies, and nothing is too absurd to occur in it.
In the year 2263, Earth is the home of The Federated Territories, which is much like the Federation in Star Trek. People now live hundreds of feet above the surface. New York's flying cars still adhere to organized paths, but traffic moves in several ascending layers. Most people live in apartments where the bed retracts into the wall and they can have a restaurant come directly to their window. They cleanse their bodies by lowering the refrigerator, stepping atop it, and raising themselves into the shower. Some people prefer to use auto wash. When the police come into your building, you must place your hands into yellow circles on the wall, unless you are auto-washing, of course.
Besson's vision of the future is more unique, creative and colorful than anything else to enter the cinemas save George Lucas' most recent episodes in a galaxy far, far away. Alas, the people live in dangerous times. Every 5,000 years, a black hole opens and a creature of pure evil enters our universe. Technically, it should be a white hole that sends it our way. In any case, if this evil reaches Earth before the Fifth Element activates the weapon against it, all life will be destroyed.
To the rescue ride the Mondoshawans. They possess the four elemental stones and Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), the Fifth Element, but evil has an ally this time. Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) has sided with the evil being, although what he stands to gain is a mystery. He uses the unwitting Mangalores as his allies, and it is them who ambush the Mondoshawan craft as it approaches Earth. However, Leeloo anticipated difficulty. With the help of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) and Priest Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm), she embarks for a distant rendezvous where the fate of every living being depends on the outcome.
Bruce Willis plays a friendlier, less abrasive, more stable hero than is his norm. Willis built his considerable fame playing everyman heroes, and he still carries that spirit with him as Dallas. He projects sadness far more effectively and believably than he does in "Die Hard with a Vengeance," and does so by muting his acting. Tommy Lister and Brion James play their roles as president and military leader with panache, and Holm meets all expectations as Priest Cornelius.
The highest praise, however, belongs to Jovovich. She is able to do what few actors dare dream, namely create her own accent. While Leeloo has unfathomable strength and mind-blowing physicals skills, bullets still hurt and she is vulnerable in a world that bombards her senses in ways she never could have imagined. Jovovich has fun with Leeloo learning new words. She has the exuberance of an exploring child and emotes flawlessly in a language nobody in the audience understands. Plus, she can shed tears as well as anybody. There is no weak moment in her performance.
Despite the fantastic name and distinctive appearance, Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg does not end the day among the classic villains. The shortcomings are not because Oldman acts poorly. They come from the way he and Besson created the character. Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel is not imposing or diabolical. Oldman elicits some laughs, which is a strong emphasis of the movie. However, he talks so strangely that many of Zorg's lines are difficult to understand.
The action is awesome. Besson peppers it with reminders that none of it should be taken seriously. Many of Leeloo's fighting moves are purely comical and Dallas' winning attack in the climatic battle is purely for laughs. At one point he is no more than eight feet from three Mangalores and they all miss him with their fully automatic weapons. Despite its goofiness, the action quality is top notch.
The best scene is a comedy-of-errors routine in Dallas' apartment. He must deal with multiple groups of people without everybody else knowing. He makes use of every gadget he can before, of course, the police arrive. It is a scene reminiscent of the old time comedies starring the likes of Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy. In a way, it epitomizes what Besson's movie is all about, and that is pure fun.