Before she was Alice in Resident Evil (2002) and long before she was Artemis in Monster Hunter (2020), Milla Jovovich was Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat (aka Leeloo) in The Fifth Element (1997). Leeloo was a supreme being or at least a regenerated one (read: clone). She was the catalyst for the Fifth Element.
“Wait,” you’re saying. Wasn’t The Fifth Element a Bruce Willis movie? Indeed it was, but despite his entertaining portrayal of the protagonist, Korben Dallas, Milla Jovovich stole the day. Do you find yourself repeating, “Leeloo Dallas Multi-Pass” when an authority figure asks for I.D., or do you deliver Korben’s lowbrow lines? “Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English,” and “Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for conversation, but maybe you could just shut up for a moment?” Twenty-five years later, I would bet there isn’t a bouncer alive who hasn’t heard the line from The Fifth Element at least once.
Writer-director Luc Besson created a classic space action-adventure that holds up today. The film stands on the shoulders of its predecessors by having used solid callbacks to inspirational successes like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Blade Runner. But it also paved the way with its outlandish costumes and imaginative sets for films like The Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy. There are a million miles of details that may go missed for years.
The Wizard of Oz-like vibe combined with an exceedingly commercial atmosphere gives us passing details like a McDonald’s sign claiming “65 Trillion Served” and a hyper-sexual and flamboyant show host called Ruby Rhod who plays sound effects and explicit clips between his fast-paced quips. With this role, Chris Tucker came out swinging for the show-stealer title, but he was far ahead of his time in that performance.
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With good aliens straight out of a Jim Henson production and bad aliens printed from an amalgam of ’90s video game monsters and soldiers, The Fifth Element let you know it was not to be taken seriously. But Besson did throw in a morality wrench that might be better recognized today. He poked fun at our acceptance of Prince Phillip’s uninvited kiss in Sleeping Beauty with an awkward scene that actually plays a part in the plot. “I shouldn’t have kissed her,” Korben mutters to himself after leaning in to kiss an unconscious Leeloo. With his gun cocked at his temple, an awakened Leeloo threatens, “Senno ecto gammat.” (“Never without my permission”). There’s an implication there. Leeloo would like to kiss Korben, but maybe later, once they’ve bonded and formed a little more chemistry that never seems to arrive outside the script’s dictation. We all know by now that it’s their shared love that saves the day. The fifth element saves the world, and somehow that cheesy concept didn’t ruin it.
Being set in a future that’s still ahead of us, The Fifth Element made predictions that can only be noticed once they’ve come and gone. Flight attendants all seemed to be living TikTok freckles filters. Ruby Rhod may have seemed like a caricature of personalities of the time, but he’s really a glorified social media influencer who streams live to entertain his followers. More noticeable than these accidental projections are the constant homages to futuristic imagery that came before.
Gary Oldman‘s Zorg has a bored receptionist who changes her nail color with a futuristic device in a similar fashion to the receptionist at Rekall in Total Recall (1990). The graphics on the targeting computer display look unmistakably similar to the displays used a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The priest’s sidekick, David, wears what at first glance seems to be a yarmulke, but there’s no question it was designed to resemble Devo’s famous futuristic hats.
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It was a visually busy movie held together with the glue of precise editing. Far too few films are edited as well as The Fifth Element. This happens when the script, film editing, and score/soundtrack are in cahoots together. We are moved through a very basic story with convoluted twists and turns. The pilot skillfully weaves us through it with little confusion despite an onslaught of world-building components that should otherwise leave us unfocused and confused. Aziz, lights, camera, action! It was all there in 1997, and twenty-five years later, The Fifth Element would be at home on the silver screen.