The Fifth Element
The Fifth Element is a 1997 English-language French science fiction action film directed by Luc Besson and co-written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen from a story by Besson.
Plot
In 1914, aliens known as Mondoshawans meet their human contact, a priest of a secret order, at an ancient Egyptian temple. They take, for safekeeping, the only weapon capable of defeating a great evil which appears every 5,000 years. They promise to return the weapon before the great evil's re-emergence. The weapon consists of the four classical elements, as four engraved stones, plus a "fifth element" in a sarcophagus.
Why It Rocks
- The concept about the elements that relies saving the Earth from being hit by a giant living fireball is overall perfect!
- It has a custom language which you know is, Divine which was spoken by Leeloo.
- Funny dialogue such as "Negative, I am a meat popsicle." & Leeloo's dialog "Multipass".
- This is one of the first movie to feature the flying cars in the future which is a neat addition.
- This is being the one of the first most expensive movie in France.
- It was so good that you can found this movie rare when once was a childhood.
- Korben Dallas is a likeable protagonist which helps their gangs to bring Leeloo the fifth element woman to the temple to save the world.
- Korben's pet white housecat is really so cute & adorable.
- Leeloo (of course she's a fifth element) is an interactive women which is a requirement for the temple to shoots her beams towards the gigantic fire ball.
- The Korben's gangs are really funny, especially when they triggers song to distract the villain to help the protagonist finds all the elements.
- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg is a vicious antagonist which tries to steal all the elements & creates a huge fire ball that ends the life in the Earth.
- The CGI for aliens, Jean-Baptiste's pet mini elephant is decent, even for 1997 standard.
- The mini elephant is a Souliman aktapan named Picasso
- The transformation of Aliens into human is something related to future as science-fiction.
- The last minutes of the time before the big fire ball hits the world was pretty funny & scary at the same time.
Bad Qualities
- Although not everyone can understand the Divine which is only exclusive to Leeloo.
- There are product placements in this movie such as McDonald's, Coca Cola, etc.
- After the beams stop shooting, it never explains what happens to Leeloo before the end of this movie.
- There's some scenes that may scares & finds it crude to younger viewers.
- The CGI for the great fireball wasn't that good compared to the Alien & the pet mini elephant.
Reception
The Fifth Element holds a 71% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 68 reviews, with an average score of 6.40/10. The site's consensus reads: "Visually inventive and gleefully over the top, Luc Besson's The Fifth Element is a fantastic piece of pop sci-fi that never takes itself too seriously." It has a weighted score of 52 out of 100 at Metacritic, based on 22 professional reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Box office
The film debuted at number one in the US, earning $17 million on its opening weekend. It went on to become a box-office success, grossing over $263 million, almost three times its budget of $90 million. About 75% of the receipts for The Fifth Element were from markets outside the United States, and it was the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year worldwide. It was the most successful film at the box office in France in 1997, with more than 7.69 million seeing the film. In Germany, the film was awarded the Goldene Leinwand, a sales certification award for selling more than three million tickets at the box office. The Fifth Element went on to become the highest-grossing French film at the foreign box-office, a record it held for 16 years until the release of The Intouchables in 2011.