THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)
This movie starts out with a huge evil planet looking force
headed towards planets throughout the universe. The only thing that can stop it
is LeeLoo, with the assistance of four other elements. After being DNA’d back
together LeeLoo (played by Milla Jovovich) escapes from
the laboratory and stumbles upon the taxi driver and Korben Dallas (played by
Bruce Willis), who also happens to be a former soldier, that helps her to escape
from space cops. There is more, but basically this whole thing is in space pretty
much and Gary Oldman plays Zorg, who’s an arms dealer being control by the evil
planet looking thing. Got all that?
In the modern day, this thing is probably
the closest you are ever going to get in regards to “set designs” and overall
goofiness to FLASH GORDON from the 80’s. Cinematically Luc Besson is a genius,
at least on this one and VALERIAN (two very similar movies). Both films a lot
like FLASH GORDON are very brightly lit and pretty feature over the top
stylized depictions of sci-fi sets, rather than dark and gritty which covers
the vast majority of the genre. I mean this thing is out of control with epic
looking aliens, and robots and just crazy space stuff. It’s got everything from
floating restaurants to blue alien opera singers. Bruce Willis is perfect in
the role of Korben Dallas and everything else about this is brilliantly done.
This is another one of those movies I watch several times a year even to this
day.
Interestingly enough VALERIAN was based
on a comic (graphic novel) that was well known. THE FIFTH ELEMENT actually
ended up in a law suit for being based in small part on a comic called The Incal, however the lawsuit did not hold
water. It is true that VALEIAN inspired some of the aesthetics in THE FIFTH
ELEMENT. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is basically a geek masterpiece and has prompted
cosplayers to mimic its characters for the past 2 decades. The special effects
still very much hold up even by today’s standards. I can’t recommend this thing
enough.
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