Highly visually arresting.

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2007)

If nothing else, Luc Besson's big budget sci-fi bomb manages to look like no other film. The Frenchman succeeds in bringing a very European look in to a major Hollywood movie (visually, the film most resembles a certain breed of European comic book) and for that alone deserves considerable credit. The effects, production and costume design all have been thought through with considerable care and make a coherent and compelling world even if, individually, they don't always work. The story, concerning the embodiment of love being required to save the universe, is deeply silly, aiming for profundity and missing by a fair margin but that's beside the point. The ride is entertaining and it's worth arguing that no female actor has ever done better as an action hero than Mila Jovovich. Kathleen Turner bombed in V.I. Warshawski (such a comprehensive disaster that, to be fair, that she never stood a chance) and the much more physically appropriate Geena Davis failed repeatedly with scripts of varying quality. The multilingual and seriously smart Jovovich has proved to have a startling range. She can do a complex historical character in "The Messenger", a comic villain in "Zoolander" and then beat the bejeezus out of all-comers in something like this. Leeloo is the only role in the film that asks much of any of the actors (Gary Oldman, as usual, gives enormously more than he is asked) and Jovovich really responds pulling off some very difficult scenes. Accepted on its own terms and "The Fifth Element" is a unique experience.