The Fifth Element (1997)

I want to begin this review with one word: Wow. I had seen bits and pieces of FIFTH ELEMENT (scenes with Christ Tucker and that singing Blue lady), but never the whole thing. Perhaps my favorite part of this movie is that the aliens in it are done with costumes and prosthetics rather than using CGI. There are a few CGI sequences, but they are never too CGI. In some movies, this can be a distraction for me. If it just looks too animated, then I start focusing on that instead of the movie. I think we should do away with CGI and have all effects done on camera. Yeah! Just like in the Méliès days!

Let’s begin with the first thing you notice about a film… the title! This title is very intriguing. One thinks, “what is the fifth element? I know about the 4 elements. Water, Wind, Fire, Earth. Captain Planet taught me that. But, I thought Heart was the fifth element….Wait. Holy shit, I am going to watch Captain Planet clips on Youtube right now. Once sec.”

(Ten Minutes Later)

“Oh man! Captain Planet and the Planeteers! I forgot that all of them are from different countries. Mother Earth is so pissed that humans are messing up her planet. So she sent out five rings to five special “young people.” When they combine the rings, Captain Planet comes to clean up the environment! Al Gore must love this show.”

Anyway, let’s get back to THE FIFTH ELEMENT, one of my new favorite science fiction movies. It’s such a treat on the eyeballs and ears. It also has one of my favorite actors in what I think is his best performance: Gary Oldman. He has the most amazing haircut and gun in this thing. The battle sequences are so great and I don’t really consider myself a “battle sequences kind of guy.” Should I have put that in quotes or should I have italicized it? Maybe I should have done one of those things were-you-combine-all-the-words-with-dashes.

It’s such a fun movie to watch and it also involves Ancient Egypt. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I love Ancient Egypt. It’s my absolute favorite ancient culture. So this gives the movie automatic brownie points with me.

Bruce Willis also does a fantastic job in the film. There is something about Bruce Willis that is so comforting. He is so damn manly and does all sorts of manly shit, but he has such a soft, boy-like face. You just want to pinch his ass and then pinch his cheeks. He evokes both sexual desire and patronizing adages like, “Awwwww! How Cute!” I wish Bruce Willis were my other Uncle. Then Uncle Willem and Uncle Bruce could take me to the zoo. I would make some joke about there being 12 monkeys in the cage and we would all laugh.

Milla Jovovich is also in the movie. It seems to me that this role is something of a Princess Leia for a new generation. I say this because Jovovich wears an instantly iconic and revealing costume through a lot of the film. This is like Leia’s slave suit in RETURN OF THE JEDI. Her charatcer is supposed to be the epitome of what a “the perfect human” looks like. But what’s up with that nappy ass orange hair? Regardless, she did a fine job in the film. You know what? Everyone did an awesome job in this movie. Iam Holm (Bilbo Baggins) plays a priest. Chris Tucker takes his annoying persona to new heights. Luke Perry also shows up for a little bit. Now I am tempted to watch BEVERLY HILLS 90210 clips on Youtube. My Mom watched that show a lot.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT also helped me grasp the concept of flying cars so much more. I have seen flying cars all over science fiction movies, but always thought they had them because it would cool if everything could fly in the future. I see now that flying cars were made because of necessity. This movie takes place in 2214 or some shit like that. There is a casual comment in the beginning of the film about how the population is somewhere near 200 Billion. Uhhh….. what? 200 Billion.

I just found a cool thing on the internet (http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop) that tells you what the population is currently and what it was like before now. You can choose whatever month, day and year you like. I decided to see how many people have entered the Earth since I was born. The number is somewhere around 1.8 Billion. The current population is almost at 7 Billion. Can you image 28.5714256 x’s the amount we have now? Is there enough land on Earth for such a population? There is! But you have to keep building higher and higher. So now, people NEED flying cars to get where they need to go. It all makes perfect sense now! Thanks FIFTH ELEMENT. I owe ya one.

Also, the opera sequence is one of my new favorite scenes in any movie. So damn good! I love cross cutting and girls kicking butt!