brilliant, but ruined

Rating: Null/10 (12 May 2001)

Basically this film can be split into two parts; A bloody brilliant on-a-par-with-star-wars first half. And A bloody awful pointless plotless second half.
I had been told this film was awful. During the first hour, i thought, no this is ace. the sixties b-movie sort of futuristic look was done perfectly, the comedy moments were there, some blinding special effects sequences. There was loads of imagination, such as the chinese food stall/flying boat thingy, the weapons etc... But what tied it all together was the plot. OK, I didn't know why this big ball of fire came from that was threatening the Earth, i did not care, i was enjoying the film too much to really think about this. And while not amazing, the plot wa interesting - i wanted to know what happened. I honestly expected it to be one of my favourite films ever at this point.
But no. If you have not seen the film as yet, then when they Earth on this mission, turn it off. Please. You would be better just imagine what happens. It would be better than the reality.
In short, there is a fight lasting 40 odd minutes, a totally corny ending where 'love' saves the Earth, the most unsubtle point about war ever (ie. lass sits in front of some images of war, then cries). I had no idea at all what was going on in the fight sequence, and when the big evil alien geezer got killed, i thought 'is that it? Shouldnt it be a bit more dramatic when a important character is killed?' The plot has been utterly forgotten to fit in special effects. They took away the quality scenery of the first half, replacing it with tripe. There is even an annoying bloke like Jar-Jar Binks (in fact i think it is the same bloke) chucked in for good measure, as if it wasn't bad enough at this point.
I was utterly peeved off with this film. I cant believe Besson messed this up. Stick with the ideas in the first half, you have one of the best films ever. Do what Besson did and you end up with a disappointing pile of excrement.