The Fifth Element

365 Films

Entry #91

The Fifth Element (1997)

Directed by Luc Besson

The Fifth Element is one of the goofiest movies ever made about an apocalyptic threat to the humanity of our planet.  Filled with stuttering bureaucratic nincompoops, a border-line minstrel show performance by Chris Tucker, dimwitted extra-terrestrials, and the least threatening villain in all of Gary Oldman’s career -- The Fifth Element sometimes comes across as everything Luc Besson ever wanted to see in a movie stuffed into a 126 minute run time.  The fascinating thing about The Fifith Element is that it’s able to transcend all of its odd proclivities and become something that’s almost transcendent: a truly original vision of science fiction mythology.  And when I say science fiction I don’t mean in it in the Blade Runner/2001 “actual” science-fiction sort of way, I’m talking more in the realm of the Star Wars space opera swing of things.  The Fifth Element has such an expansive sense of vision and scope that you almost wish they had continued with a follow-up series of films just as an excuse to get lost in it all over again.  This is assuming we lived in a perfect world where sequels never diluted the power of the originals and were entirely successful every time at the bat.  Plus, as Luc Besson’s current title of kingmaker of European action cinema indicates, he has no such interest in returning to this particular cinematic universe either.  The Fifth Element is one of those movies that you saw for the first time, really enjoyed, but sort of kept the whole thing in your pocket for many years.  You would smile politely whenever somebody brought it up and you’d try to tamper your unbridled enthusiasm for the fear of outing yourself as an unabashed lover of the adventures of Korben Dallas was simply too terrifying to contemplate.  Then one day you would meet someone who had the courage to stand up and say, “Fuck yes, Fifth Element!”  That happened to me in college while we were doing one of those introductory, getting to know you bull sessions before class had officially begun.  We went around the room spouting off about what kind of films we love and what kind we’d like to make.  It got to the instructor’s turn and she said with a quiet hint of self-consciousness, “Umm, I really love The Fifth Element but I know that I really should be ashamed of it.”  Almost as if responding to a three-alarm fire, a fellow student quickly shot back: “that is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.