Overdue Movie Reviews #8 - The Fifth Element (1997)

There's a great evil headed for Earth. To stop it requires four stones, and a person, the "fifth element." But the ship bringing them to Earth is ambushed. The stones are missing, and the fifth element is a naive young woman (Milla Jovovich), whose only assistance is an elderly, overwhelmed priest (Ian Holm), and a weary, embittered ex-soldier turned cab driver (Bruce Willis.)

I like the way the different threads overlap and tangle. It's not quite a Guy Ritchie movie, where you have multiple plotlines that may ultimately intersect by complete chance or a fluke: Not quite one guy trying to make a getaway from someone he owes money and crashes into this other dangerous guy, which results in some other person avoiding a beating they were going to get from said other dangerous guy.

In my head, I sort of picture it more like the bits in Scooby-Doo where all the characters are in a hallway full of doors and they sometimes meet or end up running through the same door. Zorg unwittingly firing Korben right as the military is going to tag Korben for this mission. By rigging the contest in his favor, the military's actions bring Cornelius and Leeloo to Korben's door, looking to steal the tickets. Which saves him when the cops show up to arrest him on the charges of uranium smuggling Zorg's guy arranged to take Korben off the board. Which then leads to the parade of Korben Dallases - none of them looking a bit alike - at the ticket booth in the spaceport.

It's farcical, but in a way that highlights the different aspects of humanity (even in the alien characters.) Korben doesn't want the mission, but he's pissed off enough (and infatuated enough with Leeloo) to end up going and trying to make it work. Cornelius is certainly a believer in his duty to help the "supreme being", but it's all been theoretical up to now. He's woefully out of his depth in the field, but trying anyway. The Mangalores may, as Zorg says, fight for hopeless causes, like honor, or revenge, but that's enough to make them try to take the stones to get Zorg over a barrel. And Zorg? This idiot's trying to make a profit off the end of the world, either unconcerned (possible) or unaware (almost certainly) that he won't survive it.

I've read Gary Oldman doesn't think much of this movie, but he really did do an excellent job. Zorg throws on this false, folksy charm when talking to the Mangalores or Cornelius, but switches to fury and tantrums in an instant. He's callous, and thinks that makes him clever, but ultimately he's a dumbass. An incompetent version of Mom from Futurama. His big spiel about his role in "the chain of life" ends with him almost choking on a cherry like a goober, and the Mangalores get the last laugh when he deactivates his bomb.

Korben Dallas is pretty typical Bruce Willis. Tired, cynical, sarcastic. Personal life in tatters, and shows no particular interest in mending it. Most of the time, he looks barely capable of managing more than a smirk. I wouldn't say he lights up around Leeloo exactly. Softens, maybe. The impatience and growling he throws at Cornelius or Ruby Rhod are absent with her. Anyway, it's fine with me. I generally like typical Bruce Willis.

It only occurred to me on this re-watch, Zorg and Korben never meet. I'm not sure either even gets a glimpse of the other. Zorg has Cornelius brought to him, and has a brief confrontation with Leeloo, but not Korben. But it makes sense if we figure Leeloo and "Mr. Shadow" are the true conflict, with Cornelius and Zorg as their respective acolytes/seconds. That makes Korben sort of a wild card, not supposed to be there. But he is. Because he wants to help someone he perceives as needing it. He can be cynical, curt, sarcastic, prone to idealizing people - I wonder if Korben had a particular idea of who his wife was she couldn't live up to, and he couldn't see past, and that's why she ran off with his lawyer - but he still chose to help someone he could barely understand, even when it put him in danger.

Jovovich has to tread a narrow line. The movie wants Leeloo to be naive or unaccustomed to this world in certain ways. So she has to play a cheerful or unassuming sort. Childlike, when she's proclaiming, "Chicken good," or, "Leeloo Dallas Multipass." But she also has to have a certain level of wisdom or awareness to her, at least of the responsibility she carries. I'm not sure we see as much of that; maybe the conversation with Korben on the spaceship, before the sleep regulator knocks him out. Quietly seeking out the diva once reaching Fhloston. She stays out of sight until the Mangalores make their move, rather than rush up to the diva in front of everyone like you might expect from a kid that doesn't grasp the stakes.

(Though I'm unclear on how old Leeloo is, even setting aside the part where her current body was rebuilt from a hand that "survived" the crash. Cornelius says he's too old to play at being her husband, but I'm guessing that was her inside the sarcophagus-looking thing the Mondoshawans take with them at the beginning of the movie. So she's centuries old, but she spends a lot of that time in suspended animation? Or is being the fifth element handed down to different people over time?) 

Holm and Chris Tucker mostly end up as comic relief. Tucker in particular, since Ruby is someone pulled into this whole mess entirely against his will. Cornelius is trying to save the world, and can act as Exposition Fountain. Ruby doesn't know why anyone is shooting at him, or why Korben is jamming his hand into the diva's torso. But Tucker goes for it. In the early going, when he's on the air, or interrogating his assistant about what they thought, he is absolute confidence. He owns his look, his walk (strut?), everything he says. Even after Korben threatens to choke him out, Ruby is back to that the next night at the diva's performance. If he doesn't try to pull witty or enthusiastic responses from Korben, he can fill that void all by himself.

And once the shooting starts, Ruby provides clear enough commentary the President and his military advisors know what's going on (generally.) If it were me, they'd have just heard, "Shit, shit shit!" and a lot of footsteps.

It's funny in a lot places, there are some good action sequences. Lotta quotes I still use. "Smoke you!" "I only speak 2 languages: English and bad English." "Super-green." Love the music. The diva's performance, where it keeps cutting to Leeloo as she flashes back to the Mangalores' attack, then shifts in pace and tone entirely when Leeloo gets to ass-kicking. Or the music during Korben and Leeloo's escape from the cops. There aren't any other settings that feel as fleshed out, but the city with its dense, tiered set-up that gets more crowded and dirtier the lower you go, it was memorable. Korben's apartment is part of that. The way it's both cluttered and kind of spartan. A few shelves with crap strewn over them that speaks to his old life, but not much else beyond the minimum requirements for living. Including his cigarettes that are more filter than anything else. I really like this movie.