Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker (1997)
Ahh. The Fifth Element. The film I have always meant to get on dvd but never quite got round to it for some reason or another. Had a lovely time sitting watching my VHS copy today (still got a good picture for being 13 years old). The premise of the story is that a big ball of evil is floating about in the sky, doing, well im not quite sure what a big ball of evil would do floating in space..it must be quite lonely up there. It's way way in the future (flying cars and everything) and this big ball of evil wants to obliterate the earth. To save the earth an oddly cute race of metalic aliens, Monascheiwans, have, in their possesion the ultimate weapon to destroy the evil. It consists of 4 stones representing the 4 elements, fire, wind, water and earth. The fifth element is a supreme being who is the missing link - whom everyone seems to think would be a male....she fortunatly is not, as every male on this film seems to lead to some sort of disaster and the world would be gone in an instant. On their way to earth, the Monascheiwans are unfortunatly killed (i don't like that bit) by some butt ugly aliens called Mangalores. All seems lost. The big ball of evil has recruted the expertise (and i use the term lightly) of a certain Jean - Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - Zorg for short. He is corrupt and has not yet seemed to realise that if he does help Mr Shadow (oh yes i meant to say the big ball of evil even has a name) he will die along with everyone else on earth, but we forgive cause he is so darn cute. So with Zorg, Mr Shadow and the Mangalores all in cahoots, who could possibly come to save the day............BRUCE WILLIS - of course. He plays the depressed and downtrodden Korben Dallas. Lee Loo (the fifth element) and Korben meet and he is immediatly drawn into the war....along with a priest, Vito Cornelious (who, through the generations has been passed down the secret of the fifth element) . Who else could possibly be needed on this journey, well i will tell you. In some hilarious mishaps (zero stones, zero crates) Zorg and The Mangalores never seem to get their hands on the stones. Lee Loo, Korben and Vito head to a big floating hotel (you keeping up) to meet a big blue diva alien who has them. There we meet Chris Tucker in his most annoying, yet best role yet as the camp but very straight radio host Ruby Rod...he doesn't actually do much apart from scream and makes matters worse but he is still very funny. So, with Zorg and Korben still having never met, Korben gets the stones from the alien and Zorg (in all his infinate wisdom)has been given a box which he thinks contains the stones and decides blowing up the hotel would be a good thing, so plants a bomb(most people would check the box before they leave Zorg- men, sigh) So with a huge explosion and death very close, Korben, Lee Loo, Ruby and Vito all escape on Zorg's ship that he has just got off to go stop the bomb and find the stones (oh Zorg, you aint to bright really are you), Zorg finds and stops his bomb only to be blown up 5 seconds later by an even bigger bomb set off by a prick of a Mangalore, Zorg it seems, did not choose his friends wisely. So, with the best supporting actor floating about in little pieces up in space now, we go back to the main story. Everyone is celebrating, but it is all to soon, the big ball of evil is now on a very fast collision course with earth. OH NO! Our heroes make it back just in time to get the stones in place and Lee Loo in the centre as she should be.....but wait...to open the stones they must use earth, wind, water and fire (it's quite genius really) and Korben has only one match left so everyone holds their breath. (i wonder how many takes that took) Lee Loo tells Korben she has no purpose if she cannot find love. He of course tells her he loves her and the weapon against evil does its work. The film ends with the wuss of a president being given a stern talking to by Korben's deranged mother in a phone call and of course Lee Loo and Korben get it oooon!
The performances are fantastic, most notebly Gary Oldman of course, as the misguided fool Zorg. You can't help but love him.
The sets and colours are fantastic and i would have loved to have seen them on the big screen.
and the costumes were made by Jean Paul Gaultier....need i say more.
10/10
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