The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fiction film directed, co-written, and based on a story by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker.
Mostly set during the twenty-third century, the film's central plot
involves the survival of humanity which becomes the duty of a taxicab driver (and former special forces
major) named Korben Dallas (Willis) when a young woman (Jovovich) falls
into his taxicab. Upon learning of her significance, Dallas must join
efforts with the girl and a priest (Holm) to recover four mystical
stones which are the key to defending Earth from an impending attack of
pure evil and destruction.
Every 5,000 years in conjunction with a planetary alignment,
a "Great Evil" appears which attempts to destroy all life in the
universe. In 1914, the Mondoshawan (pronounced "Mon-do-SHEE-wan") arrive
at an ancient Egyptian temple and retrieve the only weapon capable of
defeating the Great Evil, a collection of four stones representing the classical elements and a Fifth Element, which conjugates the other four into life. After taking the weapons as "war is coming"
but promising to return, the Mondoshawans present a key to their human
confidant, a priest, and tell him to pass it through future generations.
In 2263, the Great Evil appears and destroys a Federated Army
battleship as it heads to Earth. As the Mondoshawans return to Earth,
they are ambushed by shape-shifting Mangalores, hired by wealthy
industrialist and Great Evil ally Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman).
From the remains of the ambush, Earth scientists recover a portion of
the Fifth Element and reconstitute it to create a humanoid woman,
"Leeloo" (Milla Jovovich),
"the perfect being." Leeloo, terrified of her unfamiliar surroundings,
escapes and lands on the flying New York taxicab of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a former major in the Federated Army's Special Forces.
Dallas delivers Leeloo to current keyholder Priest Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm) and his apprentice, David (Charlie Creed-Miles).
Cornelius learns that the four original Elements were entrusted to Diva
Plavalaguna, an opera singer. Because the Mangalores failed to obtain
the stones, Zorg kills them, but their compatriots decide to obtain the
Elements for themselves. General Munro (Brion James),
Dallas' former superior, appears at Dallas's apartment to have him to
travel undercover as the winner of a rigged contest to meet the Diva.
The publicity of the contest attracts the Mangalores and Zorg to the
space liner as well. Dallas travels to the spaceport and boards the
spaceplane with Leeloo as Cornelius instructs David to prepare the
temple and sneaks onboard the spaceplane.
On the flight, Dallas meets media personality Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker),
his escort for the trip. The Diva is killed when Mangalores attack the
ship, but Dallas retrieves the Elements from the Diva's body. Zorg
arrives, takes a decoy case and leaves a time bomb,
which causes the liner's occupants to evacuate. Zorg departs on his
spacecraft, but then discovers that his decoy case is empty, and thus
returns to steal the real case. He turns off his bomb so that he can
have time to search the spaceliner, with only five seconds to spare; but
upon its deactivation, a dying Mangalore reveals that he had his own
bomb planted with a five second countdown, which destroys the entire
ship, killing Zorg and the remaining Mangalores. Dallas, Cornelius,
Rhod, and Leeloo escape just in time, using Zorg's spacecraft.
The four return to the temple on Earth as the Great Evil approaches.
The group arrange the stones and figure out how to activate them all,
but Dallas finds that Leeloo has become disillusioned and unwilling to
perform her role because humans seem compelled to war.
Dallas confesses his love for Leeloo and kisses her. Realizing that
love is worth saving, Leeloo finds the inspiration to release the
"Divine Light", causing the Great Evil to become dormant as a new moon
in Earth's orbit. The film closes with Dallas and Leeloo making love in
the chamber used for her resurrection.
As the film went into development in the early 1990s, Besson went on to create Léon, starring Jean Reno, while comic book artist Jean-Claude Mézières, who had been hired as a conceptual designer for The Fifth Element, returned to illustrating The Circles of Power, the fifteenth volume in the Valérian and Laureline
series. This particular volume featured a character named S'Traks who
drives a flying taxicab through the congested air traffic of the vast
metropolis on the planet Rubanis. Besson read the book and was inspired
to change the character of Dallas to a taxicab driver who flies through a
futuristic New York City. Zorg owns the taxi company that employs and
subsequently fires Dallas as part of a one-million person layoff
designed to slow economic growth at the request of the government.
Largely set in a futuristic New York City, the film was a French production, with most of the principal photography filmed at Pinewood Studios in England. Some scenes were also shot on location in Mauritania. The concert scenes were filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, except for the special effect shots that show the Planet Fhloston through the ship's portholes. The Fifth Element was shot in Super 35 mm film format. Many scenes contain visual effects, and nearly all of the visual effects scenes are hard-matted with aid of Computer-generated imagery. The production design for the film was developed by French comics creators Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières. The costume design was created by French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who produced 954 costumes for use in the film.
The original name of the character Ruby Rhod was Loc Rhod. This name also appears in the novelization of the film.
The "Divine Language" spoken in the film is a fictional language with
only 400 words, invented by director Luc Besson and Milla Jovovich.
Jovovich stated that she and Besson wrote letters to each other in the
Divine Language as practice.[3]
The Fifth Element received mixed-to-positive reviews with a 72%, based on 53 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, certifying it as "Fresh",[4] and a less favorable 52/100, based on 22 reviews on Metacritic.[5]
Some critics praised the film as having an unconventional visual art
style and camerawork while others criticized it for what they saw as an
inconsistent storyline and limited character development. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave it 3 stars out of 4 saying "I would not have missed seeing this
film, and I recommend it for its richness of imagery. But at 127
minutes, which seems a reasonable length, it plays long."[6] David Edelstein of Slate gave it a negative review, saying, "It may or may not be the worst movie ever made, but it is one of the most unhinged."[7]
The film was selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival[8] and became a major box office success, grossing over US$263 million, almost three times its budget of US$90 million.[9] 76% of the receipts for The Fifth Element were from markets outside of the United States.[10]
The original home video release of The Fifth Element took place in North America on December 10, 1997, on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD. The original DVD was in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen format, had English and Spanish audio and subtitling, and carried no special features.
The film was re-released in Sony's Superbit
collection on October 9, 2001. This enhanced release, also pressed in
its original 2.35:1 format, used a higher data rate for a better
picture, and featured subtitling in six languages (English, Spanish,
French, Portuguese, Chinese and Thai) but only English audio and no
special features.
A two-disc Ultimate Edition was released on January 11, 2005. Disc
one contained the Superbit DVD with five languages of subtitles (all the
Superbit subtitles except Thai) and added audio tracks in German and
Swedish. The second disc provided special features, including deleted
scenes and a production featurette, for the first time.
The first Blu-ray Disc release of the film occurred on June 20, 2006, and was widely criticized as having poor picture quality.[12] Sony subsequently made a remastered Blu-ray version available, released on July 17, 2007.[13]
The feature set of the original Blu-ray release matches Disc 1 of the
Ultimate Collection, while the Remastered version contains only English
and French audio. Neither release carried special features.
Much of the film's score, composed by Éric Serra, shows an influence of North African music, particularly Raï. The music used for the taxicab chase scene, titled "Alech Taadi" by Algerian performer Khaled, is excluded from the film soundtrack, but it is available on Khaled's album N'ssi N'ssi.
Plavalaguna performs on stage.
In Plavalaguna's performance, the music and the vocalization abruptly shift from a classical to a trance
style. This striking change is cross-cut with scenes of Leeloo's fight
with the Mangalores in Plavalaguna's chamber, and the fight choreography
is set to the music. In this sequence, the music is both diegetic and extra-diegetic, as the music is audible to the characters in the theater, but used as a dramatic score for the fight scene.
The Diva Dance opera performance featured music from Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor : "Il dolce suono", the mad scene of Act III, Scene II, and was sung by Albanian sopranoInva Mula-Tchako, while the role of Plavalaguna was played by French actress Maïwenn Le Besco. Part One (titled Lucia di Lammermoor) and Part Two (titled The Diva Dance) of this piece are included as separate tracks on The Fifth Element
soundtrack, but are sequenced to create the effect of the entire
performance seen in the film. The end of Part One blends into the
beginning of Part Two, creating a smooth transition between the two
tracks.
Two versions of The Fifth Element score have been produced. In addition to the version released commercially, there is a two-disc set titled "The Fifth Element: The Complete Score",
that was available exclusively as a promotional piece. The first disc
in the set contains 46 tracks and the second contains 31 tracks. The
tracks are sequenced in parallel to the film's narrative; although the
set includes extended and alternate versions, as well as music used only
in previews, and recordings not used in the final film. Tracks 5
through 31 on the second disc are the same tracks selected for
commercial release.
Track listing
All tracks composed by Éric Serra unless indicated otherwise.
^
Interview included in the bonus feature "The Adventure and Discovery of
a Film: The Story of the Fifth Element" on the DVD release of The Fifth Element (Ultimate Edition).
Besson, Luc. (1997) The Story of the Fifth Element: The Adventure and Discovery of a Film, London: Titan. ISBN 1-85286-863-5
Bizony, Piers. (2001) Digital Domain: The Leading Edge of Visual Effects, London: Aurum. ISBN 1-85410-707-0
Hanson, Matt. (2005) "The Fifth Element", in Building Sci-Fi Moviescapes: The Science Behind the Fiction, Burlington, Massachusetts: Focal Press, pp. 60–66. ISBN 0-240-80772-3.
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