Spectacular sci-fi action comedy.

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2007)

The Fifth Element is set in the year 2263 where Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) works as a taxi driver in New York City. Deep in outer space a large moon like fiery planet has appeared from nowhere, not knowing what it is several Earth spaceships fire rockets into it but it only gets bigger & destroys the ships. Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm) tries to tell the president (Tommy 'Tiny' Lister) of an ancient legend where a force of pure evil will destroy all life in the universe & that he believes it has finally come & that a bunch of friendly aliens known as the Mondoshawan hold the key to defeating it with the four elements -wind, Earth, fire, water- & a mysterious fifth element. As they try to land on Earth the Mondoshawan spaceship is shot down by a race of aliens called Mangalore's hired by evil billionaire Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman), however a hand is found in the wreckage & using it's DNA scientists create a body for it & it turns out to be a beautiful woman (Milla Jovovich) who escapes & ends up in the back of Korben's taxi who then becomes involved in finding the four elements & the mysterious fifth...
This French production was written & directed by Luc Besson & I thought The Fifth Element was a wonderfully over-the-top sci-fi action flick that probably won't be to all tastes but it was certainly to mine. Besson apparently wrote the script while he was in high school which means absolutely nothing & is a lot of fun, it's action packed, it moves along like a rocket, there are some nice ideas here & it shows some imagination rather than just being a rehash. I liked all the character's in this, from Willis' special ops taxi driver to Jovovich's fragile yet interesting alien Leeloo to Chris Tucker's over-the-top gay DJ who you'll either love or hate to Holm's dotty priest to Gary Oldman's sinister villain. Having said that neither the hero Bruce Willis or the villain Gary Oldman ever meet on screen which sounds odd but is true. There are some colourful character's in here & some suitably odd looking aliens. The Fifth Element has a fantastic blend of substance & style, the story is good & eminently watchable while the film simply oozes with style & class. I thought some of the sci-fi elements were cool with a great comic book like interpretation of the future with flying cars & ultra compact apartments where things fold away into the walls to save space, the comedy & light heartiness worked well too with some nice one-liners & a fair amount of quotable dialogue & it's action scenes were similarly impressive with various gunfights, explosions, bombs & martial arts scenes, I mean it's all here what more do you want?
Director Besson shines here as The Fifth Element is a stylish masterpiece, I've always though film was a visual medium & I love it when filmmakers just let loose & try to make something visually stunning & in The Fifth Element I think they've succeeded with panache. From the bright colour schemes to the constant use of shapes & angles to the imaginative & still pretty impressive special effects which were probably a mixture of traditional model work & CGI computer effects to the cinematography The Fifth Element has to be one of the best looking sci-fi films ever & it's a film I could watch purely on an aesthetic level regardless of the story. I love the look of the film, the design of the spaceships & the outlandish costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier in which Bruce Willis goes from his trademark white vest from Die Hard (1988) to a bright orange one here which I thought was a nice little touch & maybe a nod to his earlier success. The aliens look good too & as a whole this is a joy to watch.
With a supposed budget of about $90,000,000 The Fifth Element at the time it was made was the biggest budget none Hollywood film & one has to say the money show's on screen with plenty of special effects & a convincingly realised futuristic world, it was largely shot in England & has high production values. The cinematography is great but please, please, please make sure you watch it in widescreen. The acting is pretty good, I've always liked Bruce Willis & I like him in this, Chris Tucker is sort of annoying but not enough to totally spoil it.
The Fifth Element is a fantastic sci-fi action film that's as good to look at as anything out there, the style together with an entertaining story & Bruce Willis pretty much means The Fifth Element is a personal favourite of mine, what can I say? Watch it as soon as you can.