The Fifth Element (1997)
★★★½ — The Fifth Element (1997)
Released in the summer of 1997, The Fifth Element arrived as something of an anomaly: a French-produced, English-language science fiction spectacle bankrolled by Gaumont and shot largely at Pinewood Studios in England. At the time, it was one of the most expensive European films ever made, and that ambition is visible in every frame. The premise draws on a concept Luc Besson first sketched out as a teenager, and the world on screen reflects decades of obsessive, idiosyncratic vision rather than anything assembled by committee. Set in a bustling, vertically stacked version of 23rd-century New York, the film drops the audience straight into a future where flying taxis share the skyline with opera houses and intergalactic cruise ships, and where an ancient, near-unstoppable evil is bearing down on Earth. The tone is equally hard to pin down: part blockbuster action film, part operatic fantasy, part broad comedy. It is, to put it plainly, like nothing else from its era (or any other, really).
For Besson, the film represented a kind of apex of the kinetic, visually saturated style he had been building through his earlier work. Fans of his previous features, including Léon: The Professional (1994), will recognise the same appetite for stylised action and morally complicated central relationships, even if the register here is considerably more flamboyant. The costume design was handed to Jean-Paul Gaultier, whose contribution gives the film a runway-meets-junkyard aesthetic that has proved genuinely durable. Production designer Dan Weil built a world that feels both chaotic and considered, the kind of future that seems to have its own internal logic even when the plot is cheerfully ignoring it.
The cast is a study in contrasts, which suits the film down to the ground. Bruce Willis, no stranger to reluctant-hero territory (his work across various genres in this period, including Twelve Monkeys (1995), showed a willingness to work with bold, unconventional material), anchors proceedings with the weary charm he does so well. Milla Jovovich, then still relatively early in her career, takes on a physically and emotionally demanding role that requires her to communicate across a language barrier for much of the film's first half. Ian Holm brings a gentle, bumbling warmth to the priest caught up in all of it, and Gary Oldman commits entirely to a villain whose accent and wardrobe choices are, to put it generously, polished but unremarkable by his own extraordinary standards. And then there is Chris Tucker, whose high-energy, high-volume performance as Ruby Rhod exists in a category entirely its own.
The Fifth Element (1997) is a dazzling, chaotic sci-fi fantasy that throws you headfirst into a hyper-stylised future directed by Luc Besson. It starts with a rock-solid premise: an ancient force threatens to destroy Earth every 5,000 years, and the only hope lies in a mysterious alien artifact and the "Fifth Element," a perfect being designed to unite the four classical elements and save humanity. Bruce Willis plays Korben Dallas, a gruff ex-soldier turned cabbie who gets pulled into the mission after a brilliant Milla Jovovich as Leeloo crashes into his life literally from the sky. I love the start of this film. Willis brings his signature dry wit and reluctant hero energy, while Jovovich is radiant (both ethereal and fierce). Their chemistry simmers beneath the chaos, giving the film a surprisingly heartfelt core. The costume design (by Jean-Paul Gaultier no less) is bold, unforgettable, and somehow both absurd and elegant. Add in Chris Tucker’s scene-stealing turn as Ruby Rhod (a performance unlike any other in cinema history), and the visual world-building is pure spectacle done right. Sure, the story takes a sharp left when we get into the “stones,” the priest, and the mystical chanting finale, it gets a little weird, even by its own bonkers standards. But that’s also part of its charm. It doesn’t try to make sense; it tries to feel like myth, pop, opera, and action all at once. Flawed, messy, but bursting with imagination and heart. Not hard sci-fi, not pure comedy, just a one-of-a-kind ride that’s aged beautifully. A cult classic that earns every bit of its cult.
What stays with me, coming back to this one, is how little it feels like a product of compromise. Most films of this scale have the edges sanded off somewhere along the line, but The Fifth Element seems to have gone in the opposite direction, getting stranger and more itself with each reel. There is a generosity to it as well, a genuine desire to entertain on every possible frequency simultaneously, that I find hard to resist even when the mythology gets a bit tangled. If you have never seen it, it is the kind of film you really ought to watch without anyone telling you too much first. And if you have not revisited it in a while, it holds up better than you might expect. Sometimes the mad ones do.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1997 | Watched: 2025-10-06
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for The Fifth Element (1997) on YouTube
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Luc Besson: Anna (2019) · Léon: The Professional (1994)
More with Bruce Willis: Armageddon (1998) · Alpha Dog (2006) · Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) · Twelve Monkeys (1995)
More from France: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
