science fiction extravaganza

Rating: 6/10 (15 January 2019)

"The fifth element" is a big, sugary slice of space opera, with a screenplay that feels as if was written by two twelve-year-olds on the back of an old envelope. (Think "Flash Gordon" with a sprinkling of psychedelic glitter.) The plot does not really bear repeating or summarizing, but it goes a bit like this : Good and Evil, aka Life and Death, wage war on a vast cosmic scale, involving scores of soldiers both witting and unwitting. These wild and diverse armies contain persons of human, alien and (possibly) supernatural origin from all walks of life : warriors, monks, taxi drivers, celebrities, scientists and yes, even opera singers.
How to rate the movie ? This is a difficult question, since parts of it are good, parts of it are unremarkable and parts of it are bad. The bad straddles two different categories - simply bad versus so bad that it becomes good - and on top of it all there's a layer of knowing wit. I'm slapping six stars on it, for "feel free to watch it, but only once", but I can fully understand other ratings.
"The fifth element" certainly delivers in the style and beauty department. Some of the best French graphic artists, illustrators and designers collaborated on the project, and it shows. The superbly inventive costumes, for instance, contribute to the general whackiness and extravagance of the movie, by fooling around with concepts of sexuality, gender and even species.
Other aspects are far less impressive. The taxi driver protagonist, for instance, lives in what seems like a surveillance and police state. The police certainly aren't going for the calmly didactic approach : they wear frightening uniforms, use heavily muscled methods and think nothing of pulverizing the odd miscreant. But the movie does nothing with these concepts - this dysfunctional background could just as well be multicolored wallpaper.
Aaah, science fiction, the genre that likes to tackle big, dangerous ideas !