The Fifth Element

THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)

Luc Besson is one helluva enjoyably disappointing director; his movies, for me, are simultaneously more and less than what I expect. They are well-filmed, exciting and generally concerned with more than just things blowing up (the charm of La Femme Nikita is that the heroine is genuinely horrified at the acts she must commit to stay alive; the constant tension of the action scenes the Besson crafts is slowly turning her into a nervous wreck) and yet it is precisely at this higher, more serious level that Besson frequently fails. I suppose if there's any director he reminds me of, it's James Cameron, who has similarly keen eye for detail, desire to say something important and absolutely nothing original to say.

The Fifth Element is an enjoyably dumb movie; exactly what I was hoping Stargate or Independence Day would be. The story of a 22nd century cabdriver caught up in the pursuit of some stones and a sexy intergalactic gaurdian to battle the ultimate evil, The Fifth Element is a bit like having every issue of Heavy Metal crammed into a two hour movie. In that way, it's like The City of Lost Children (both movies share Jean-Paul Gaultier as designer and the outfits in The Fifth Element are, if anything, even more beautiful that those in Children).

In fact, at one point, the cameo by underground fave dj, Tricky, made me wonder if the Fifth Element isn't as much of a movie as it is the visual equivalent of a hip-hop DJ's set. Ideas and images are freely borrowed from Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Die Hard Brazil (and that's just for starters) to the point that it accomplishes the same feeling as sampling where the use of an immediately recognizable motif is used as commentary, deconstruction and a way of engaging the listener at a level of intellectual recognition that is normally detached.

That in itself is far too intellectual a perch from which to examine "The Fifth Element." The movie, with the exception of one character that is either a racist caricature, a homphobic caricature or spoof of the traditional action movie's use of a black character as the hero's right-hand man, is enjoyably good natured and inoffensive. Besson's surprisingly taut form of cross-cutting between scenes in the second half of the movie is surprisingly different from what one sees in this sort of movie; instead of honing in on the plot, the movie seems to open up, get more breezy and explorative. By the time, Willis's character is sitting in the front row of an opera performance being sung by a blue-skinned alien, the movie spends more time on the scene than the ultimate battle between good and evil needs. The movie is fond of detail for its own sake and the Fifth Element, like a dub tape made by someone with a good record collection and a sense of taste, will make you nod your head and smile in a way that the silliest, sunniest pop music will, sticking in your brain and then painlessly fading back into the ether.

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