This movie has all the right elements!

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2008)

Last night I watched "The Fifth Element" (1997) written /directed by Luc Besson for the first time - somehow I missed it and not being a huge fan of sci-fi, I did not search for it. Better later then never - the movie is pure and marvelous fun. It smiles at itself, does not take itself seriously and it is outrageously beautiful. It is a perfect mixture of Action / Adventure / Romance / Sci-Fi / Thriller/ with the comedy and the funny one, too. It seems to me that Steven Spielberg might have used some ideas of "The Fifth Element" in his great "Minority Report". The story's five elements, four stones that represent water, earth, fire and air, and a perfect human creature - a girl, must together fight the absolute evil. Bruce Willis is as good as ever doing what he does best -fighting the bad guys (ugly scary aliens and very bad Gary Oldman with a hairdo you have to see to believe) and saving not just a hotel or one big city or even the great country but the Life as we know it. Luc Besson, the director, also wrote the story and the screenplay and I read that he had written it when he was 13. I think it is great that he adapted his own early writings because there is so much joy in it, the joy and happiness that only can be felt in one's childhood. The visuals, the sound, and the music to the film are terrific. The costumes created by another boy-genius, "enfant terrible" of Paris haute couture Jean-Paul Gaultier will grab your eye and attention - so shockingly creative and unforgettable they are - the garment Milla was wearing in her first scene, for example. Who would think the wide band-aids can look so sexy yet innocent yet crazy when wrapped around a beautiful girl? Bruce Willis's orange top that matches Milla's blinding red hair, absolutely hilarious outfits DJ Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker) was proudly wearing? I am smiling now when I just think of them. Milla Yovovich possesses a rare exotic unusual beauty and the eyes, radiant and green like a new spring grass - she was a perfect choice for a perfect creature, the Mankind's only hope for survival in the eternal ferocious struggle between Good and Evil, Creativity and Destruction, Life and Death, Love and Hatred.