THE FIFTH ELEMENT

Including robots, mystical thinking, special effects, and strange creatures, THE FIFTH ELEMENT has been called the STAR WARS of the 90’s. If the truth be known, THE FIFTH ELEMENT is no STAR WARS. Too self conscious, too camp and too derivative, this movie looks good but end up as a piece of fluff.

Director Luc Besson (LA FEMME NIKITA and THE PROFESSIONAL) starts the movie in 1914 in Egypt. We are reminded that the four elements understood by the ancients are earth, fire, water, and wind. A priest, entrusted with the secret of the fifth element which was passed onto him by aliens from another planet, stands guard at a pyramid while an archeologist decodes this same secret from hieroglyphics etched onto the wall. Aliens land to tell the priest that the evil will come in 300 years, and he must pass the knowledge down to future priests so the future will be saved.

Jump ahead 300 years. The President of the United States of America is black; New York City is filled with traffic from flying cars; and, a big black ball of evil is making its way towards earth. Military commanders fire on the evil ball, but the ball only grows larger. Cornelieus (Ian Holm) is the current priest with the secret of the fifth element. He tells the president about a mystical method to stop the evil, but the president is not impressed. A star ship of aliens travels to earth carrying the fifth element to save the planet, but the ship is destroyed by the evil.

From the wreckage, scientists discover a fragment of a human leg. Using a device which is instructed by the human’s DNA, a whole new human is re-created, specifically a woman named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). Leeloo has super-human powers and escapes from the lab onto the streets of New York and into a taxi cab driven by Kaleb Dallas (Bruce Willis). Kaleb escapes with Leeloo and begins to have a crush on her. Leeloo takes him to Cornelieus who tells them they need to collect four stones which are used in Egypt with the fifth element to save the earth. The stones are hidden in a blue opera singer on a cruse ship orbiting the earth. On the cruise ship, Kaleb and Leeloo recover the stones and rush back to earth before the evil ball strikes it.

STAR WARS had the right combination of plot, mysticism and humor to provide a captivating viewing experience. With its re-release only months ago, people will have a difficult time putting this movie in the same category. The hero is a divorced derelict with a traffic record. The priest certainly isn’t Christian, but says the fifth element, Leeloo, is a supreme being. Leeloo is cute, but her supremeness isn’t developed at all, and her love interest in Kaleb is only as deep as physical attraction. In STAR WARS, the greatest representation of evil was the Emperor, followed by Darth Vader. Here, evil is a blob of glowing rock speeding toward earth. There is a villain, named Zorg, played by Gary Oldman, but his fake Southern accent is a joke, and he never does anything evil. There are evil henchmen, but they look and act like something out of a POWER RANGERS movie.

One of the most irritating elements of this movie is a prancing, sissy transvestite who gets a lot of screen time in the last third of the movie. The character is not homosexual and in fact seduces a woman, but he does make sexually suggestive remarks and acts like a total fool. This character acts as a counter-point to Kaleb, but Kaleb seems to get along just fine without the help of this drag queen. Furthermore, a whole group of like-minded people follow this character. The inclusion of this character certainly seems like a reflection of the times in Hollywood today. In contrast, STAR WARS is durable and timeless without inside jokes about the times from which it was produced. THE FIFTH ELEMENT may date very quickly.

This movie has a romantic worldview with the ultimate conclusion that romantic love, between Kaleb and Leeloo, will save the world. Romantic love will not save the world. God is love, and He gave His only begotten Son that all who believe in Him will be saved. One of the most blatant omissions in this movie is the fact that the priest, supposedly a Catholic, makes no mention of Jesus Christ, or the Bible. Here, the priest seems to be sort of a New Ager remarking about a human supreme being who is perfect in every way – nonsense!

THE FIFTH ELEMENT may gain a sort of cult following who have enjoyed the likes of BLADE RUNNER and BRAZIL, and it may do well on its opening weekend on the name of Bruce Willis, but it will not gain the sort of success as STAR WARS. STAR WARS was based on the Saturday matinee cliff-hanger. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is based on a mishmash of ideas, all of them done better before.