Excellent

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2004)

There's never going to be a movie EVERyONE likes, but I'm writing this review b/c when I first saw this film - 4 yrs after it was released - I thought it was one of the most visually appealing and originally-executed sci-fi thrillers I'd ever seen.
I'm an art student, so I really appreciated the over-the-top audio-visual smorgasboard that Besson does best. A lot of love went into this film. His vision of the future closely resembles mine---lots of chaos, but somehow things get done anyway. And that future is portrayed exactly as if we had just been suddenly thrown into it (like jovovich's character): dizzyingly colorful and chaotic, but filled with wonder and awe too. One couldn't ask for a better cast, especially Ian Holm and Gary Oldman. Eric Serra's ethereal score is the ideal match for the mood of the film.
A couple of negatives, like police brutality and corporate megalomania, the shootup scenes went a little long, and the ending was kinda corny, but nothing that ruins the film as a whole. Besson's 5th El. has its own unique, sometimes ludicrous energy, which sets its apart from any other films. I thought this was a truly enjoyable movie.