The Fifth Element (1997)

There's a moment early in The Fifth Element where a cab falls through the sky, dodging traffic in a neon-drenched Manhattan that reaches down into clouds and up into orbit, and you just think: right, we're doing this. Luc Besson isn't easing you in. He's grabbed you by the collar and lobbed you headfirst into one of the most deliriously over-the-top science fiction worlds ever put on screen. And for a good stretch, it's absolutely brilliant.

The premise is genuinely rock solid. An ancient, malevolent force bears down on Earth every five thousand years, and the only thing standing between civilisation and obliteration is a mysterious "Fifth Element," a perfect being who must unite the four classical elements to repel it. That being is Leeloo, played by Milla Jovovich, who crashes quite literally into the cab of one Korben Dallas, a gruff ex-soldier reduced to driving for a living. Bruce Willis is doing exactly what Willis does best here: dry, world-weary, quietly funny, with enough warmth underneath to make you root for him. And Jovovich is genuinely radiant. She manages to be both otherworldly and completely human, fierce and vulnerable in the same breath. Their chemistry is understated but it works, and it gives the film an emotional anchor it badly needs when things start getting properly strange.

And they do get strange. Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes are outrageous in the best possible way, bold and absurd and somehow elegant all at once. The world-building is pure spectacle: every frame is stuffed with detail, colour and invention. It reminds me a little of Fantastic Planet (1973) in the way it commits totally to its own visual logic, constructing a universe that feels genuinely alien rather than just futuristic. And then there's Chris Tucker as Ruby Rhod, a performance so aggressively, brilliantly unhinged that I'm not sure cinema has produced anything quite like it before or since. Every second he's on screen is an event.

So why only three and a half stars? Because the back half loses the plot a bit, and not in a charming way. Once the story pivots hard into the business with the stones, the priest, and the mystical chanting finale, it starts straining under the weight of its own mythology. The rules get wobbly. The logic, never exactly tight to begin with, starts to feel genuinely arbitrary. Besson seems less interested in making it cohere and more interested in making it feel like myth and opera and pop art and action cinema all blended together in a blender someone left the lid off. Which, credit where it's due, is a reasonable ambition. It just doesn't quite stick the landing.

Besson has always had a talent for kinetic, visually arresting filmmaking, and you can feel the same restless energy here that he brought to Léon: The Professional (1994), though The Fifth Element is a far wilder, sillier beast. Where Léon is lean and controlled, this is maximalist and sprawling, bursting at every seam. That's both its greatest strength and its biggest weakness.

The thing is, I don't think The Fifth Element is trying to be a tidy film. It's trying to be an experience, a feeling, a ride you remember for the rest of your life. And on those terms, it largely succeeds. It's flawed and messy and occasionally baffling, but it's also got genuine imagination and genuine heart, which puts it miles ahead of plenty of slicker, more polished blockbusters that deliver nothing except noise. I've seen it more than once and I'll see it again. That counts for something.

Three and a half stars. A cult classic that's earned every bit of its cult, rough edges and all.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1997  | Watched: 2025-10-06

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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)