About:
The Fifth Element opens in the year 1914 in a remote desert where we see a great stone building similar to ancient Egyptian buildings. Inside the structure are two white men who explore the ancient hieroglyphic inscriptions on the stone walls of an inner chamber. Nearby are some young Egyptian boy servants of the Caucasian archeologists. The older, white-haired archaeologist deciphers the language of the hieroglyphs. He learns that a mysterious race visits this site every 5000 years from far away. The wall carvings also say that a great evil will visit in the future, and that a mysterious Supreme Being, the ultimate warrior, will save the people and every living thing. Then, a cloaked monk-like figure appears in the room.

Above: a sketch of a Mondoshawan, inspired by the archeologist's sketch of an alien from the 1997 movie, The Fifth Element. Above image copyright: SceneBank.com, 2012

The priest realizes that the two other men have learned too much about the secret inscriptions, and he mutters aloud, explaining his motives to the viewer. He poisons the archaeologist's water, but just as they are about to drink the poisoned water from their cups, a dark shadow appears on the temple outside, and several lumbering metallic robots descend from a skyscraper-tall spaceship that silently hovers atop the temple's entrance. The robots are huge, and they struggle to fit through the temple doorway, waddling slowly toward the hieroglyph room. The priest knows who they are, and the visitors expect to find the priest there. They give a golden key to the priest, subdue the two archaeologists, and instruct the priest to tell his Order to continue guarding the alien secret, and keep the gold key until the Mondoshawan (Mono-shee-wan) return in 300 years. We are struck by the power of the aliens, who send fear into men, despite their benevolent intentions. The giant alien spaceship departs for outer space.

Now we fast-forward to see Earth in the year 2263, In a room in New York City, Earth's 'President of the Federated Territories' is meeting with his military advisors. The military is there because there's a huge planetoid heading into the outer reaches of the solar system. Three huge Earth military space vessels have been sent to the alien object to investigate. They probe the planetoid with their spaceship's sensors, and try to contact it by radio. There is no response. They try to fire missiles into the planetoid, but the missiles explode inside the alien object, and enlarge it, seemingly strengthening it with the power of the explosives. They fire even more missiles at the dark object, but it grows still bigger. Suddenly, the Earth military ships are destroyed by the advancing planetoid, the military general incapacitated by fear that seems to emanate like a paralytic beacon from the alien object. Back on Earth, the President is at a loss for what to do. None of the military's weapons can destroy the alien object that edges ever closer toward the planets of our solar system. Just then, a priest stands up in the President's room with some answers. The President needs information desperately, so he reluctantly gives the intruding priest a chance to explain things. The priest is Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm). Cornelius shows a thick book containing ancient writings and pictures of the same tales told on the hieroglyphics seen in 1914. The prophecy has fulfilled itself. The great evil predicted to come to the Earth in the future is happening now. We connect the dots, and see that Father Cornelius is of the same religious Order of that other priest from 1914. Cornelius explains that a race of benevolent aliens will visit the Earth to protect humanity. Just then, a message arrives from a friendly alien spacecraft. They are Mondoshawan. They request permission to come toward Earth. The President gives the order to permit them, and the giant alien craft begins to approach Earth, when suddenly the ship is attacked by two tiny spaceship fightercraft piloted by a different species — dog-faced aliens called Mangalores. The disabled Mondoshawan ship is destroyed when it tumbles into a moon, so Cornelius slumps into his chair and declares, "We are lost."

The wreckage of the Mondoshawan alien ship is analyzed for any survivors, but all that's found is a piece of tissue from a crash victim. Employing futuristic Earth technology of the year 2263, technicians use the DNA of the recovered tissue to reassemble the organism from which it came — kind of like reconstructing a printed book backwards if one had only a single paragraph. The finished product looks not like an alien, but like a woman. The only thing is, the woman's DNA has eight strands (not two, like in normal humans). Her DNA is "perfect" according to one technician. The finished organism is jolted to life with an electric shock, and escapes from her enclosure using superhuman strength. Fearing the military men and technicians in the room, she flees to the outside of the lab building. Pursued by police, the woman has nowhere to go but on the window ledge of the building that is tens of stories above the ground. The woman looks down and sees thousands of flying cars speeding about in layered formations in the 'aerial streets' below. She jumps off the building and her body punctures the metal roof of a yellow taxi cab driven by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). This fall into the cab would have killed any normal woman, but this reassembled woman is supernaturally strong. She starts tearing up and pleads with Korben Dallas for help. Despite his reluctance, he relents — swayed by the woman's beauty. He tries to drive the woman to safety, eluding some pursuing police cars in a high-speed chase through the skies of the future New York City. Korben manages to drive his taxi cab to his apartment. Safely inside the apartment, Korben learns that the woman is named "Leeloo," but she can't speak English, and instead speaks a foreign tongue he has never heard. The woman bewilders Korben with her beauty. She says she must contact a priest called "Vito Cornelius." They visit the apartment address of Cornelius, and he gratefully meets with Leeloo. They give Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) some clothes, food, and a computer to learn about the Earth's history, about which she knows nothing.

Meanwhile, the police are still searching for Leeloo, so they knock on the hallway doors inside of Korben's apartment building. They mistakenly arrest the verbally abusive man in the apartment next door, instead of arresting Korben.

At this time, The alien Mondoshawans contact the President and inform him that the important cargo that can save Earth was not actually on the Mondoshawan spaceship that got destroyed. Rather, it was with an entertainer known as 'the Diva' who will be singing on a space cruise liner at the planet called Fhloston Paradise. Concerned about the mysterious attackers who destroyed the Mondoshawan spaceship, the President asks his general for a soldier who can be trusted to go on a discreet mission to bring the cargo to Earth. A general suggests Korben Dallas. They arrange to have him win a contest for a free cruise to planet Fhloston. He embarks on a transport ship from Earth to the distant cruise ship while Leeloo poses as his wife. Priest Cornelius comes along too (but as a stowaway).

Back on Earth, there is a corrupt money-grubber with a Hitlerian hair-style named Zorg (Gary Oldman) who is cooperating with the sinister planetoid that is approaching Earth. Zorg speaks to the malevolent planetoid by telephone, and the giant ball instructs Zorg to get the same four Mondoshawan 'stones' wanted by Korben, Leeloo, and Cornelius. So, Zorg flies to the cruise ship at Fhloston Paradise too. We learn that it was Mr. Zorg who originally hired some Mangalore warriors to attack the Mondoshawan ship earlier in the film. But now some other Mangalores are out to kill Zorg after he had killed some Mangalores on Earth after a business deal went badly.

The dog-faced Mangalores attack the humans on the cruise ship at Fhloston Paradise and kill the Diva who tells Korben Dallas in her dying words that the four Mondoshawan stones are within her own body. Korben removes the artifacts from the Diva's corpse. Zorg has injured Leeloo on another part of the cruise ship. Korben finds Leeloo and flees with Cornelius and the injured Leeloo back to Earth. Zorg is killed by the Mangalores on the cruise ship just as he closes in on the fleeing trio.

The powerful alien planetoid starts gobbling up all the solar system's communication satellites, and heads on a course straight for Earth with only a few hours until it unleashes its destructive power.

When the trio of heroes returns to Earth, they head to the Egyptian desert temple with the artifacts. As instructed by his teachings, Father Cornelius places the Mondoshawan artifacts atop four waist-high columns. There is one column for each of four elements — Wind, Earth, Fire Water. After placing the artifacts atop their columns like putting four different keys into four different locks . . . nothing happens. When a frustrated acolyte accidentally breathes on the artifact representing Wind, the Wind column activates some sort of multicolor hologram. The other people try to do the same thing for the other three columns, lighting a flame above the Fire column, adding sand to the Earth column, and adding water to the Water column. According to his teachings, Father Cornelius asks for the Fifth Element, Leeloo, to be placed in the center of the four columns. But Leeloo was injured on the Fhloston cruise ship, and has little strength. Attracted to Leeloo's beauty, Korben tries to hug her and comfort her, and finally kisses her. Suddenly, the five-element mechanism creates a powerful beam that shoots upward from the temple into outer space, and neutralizes the evil alien planetoid into a lump of inert rock. Humanity is rescued. It has been saved not by powerful military weapons, but by a very simple Fifth Element — love.

Negatives:
If Leeloo was a passenger on the Mondoshawan spaceship, why is it that the only other occupants seen on the ship were aliens that did not look like humans as Leeloo does? Are the Mondoshawans a human race? Are they biological aliens? If so, why do the Mondoshawans need such elaborate bulky giant tube costumes with the rotating robot heads? In other words, the identity of the visiting race is never really revealed as to their biology. What's underneath their elaborate metal costumes? Are the Mondoshawans 100% robot? This lack of alien identity in the 'reconstitution of Leeloo' scene is forgivable since the scriptwriter is trying to convey a sense of mystery. At first we don't know the species identity of the tissue recovered from the alien craft, but as the organism is assembled, we are surprised to see it's a human-like form. Also unexplained is why Leeloo's DNA is made of eight tightly wound strands. Is Leeloo's species a progenitor race of the human race? Was Leeloo created by the Mondoshawan to protect humanity, and this is why her DNA and cells were made more 'perfect' than normal human's DNA and cells? This is never made clear.

The Mondoshawans are supposed to be more intelligent than humans since they had spaceships in 1914, at a time when humans only had airplanes. If so, why is it when the sophisticated Mondoshawan spaceship is attacked by two tiny Mangalore fighter ships, that the Mondoshawan ship didn't have any automatic defensive weapon capabilities? It's odd that such an advanced spaceship would be so vulnerable to attack.

Near the movie's beginning, three Earth military spaceships stand poised to attack the evil planetoid. One of the junior officers says that the planetoid's temperature was "minus 5000 degrees." Absolute Zero temperature is known as minus 273 degrees Celsius, so it's not possible to get any colder than that.

In humans, memories are stored in the brain. If Leeloo was reconstructed from only the severed hand recovered from the Mondoshawan starship crash, then how did her *memories* of the crash transfer over to her laboratory reconstructed clone? Also, wouldn't a reconstituted human need to be educated just like a normal 'new' human child, despite Leeloo having an adult body? And what exactly are the "greasy solar atoms" mentioned by the scientist who assembled Leeloo?

One high-action scene showed Korben Dallas driving a flying taxi pursued by several flying police cars. The police can't catch up to the flying taxi cab, so they set up an ambush with several armed police cars positioned in the taxi's eventual path. The hovering police cars fire built-in high-caliber guns at the taxi cab, damaging it. However, some of the bullets would surely miss the taxi, wouldn't they? Wouldn't those bullets hit nearby buildings, and eventually arc down into the streets below, possibly hitting other flying cars, buildings, and pedestrians?

One unrealistic scene, was where the ticketing agent accepted tickets from three different men trying to go on the Fhloston Paradise space cruise. It seems unlikely that this could happen in the future, since there would likely be biometric information on all people stored in the airline's computers, along with very hard to trick photo I.D.'s including fingerprints. Back in the 1950's, such ticket trickery may have been more possible for an airplane flight since only a paper ticket was required to fly on plane, but in the 23rd century, this trickery would be unrealistic. Still, the incident was funny, so the low likelihood of trickery is ignorable.

In the film's last half, the alien Mangalores that attacked the cruise ship on Fhloston Paradise are shown mercilessly killing and terrorizing humans inside of a concert hall where the Diva was singing. Later, they are in pitched battle with the human, Korben Dallas, and are shooting their automatic rifles everywhere until they finally corner Korben and tell him to "get up." If only moments ago, they were killing everything in sight, then why would they show mercy to Korben once they cornered him? Wouldn't they just shoot Korben? Naturally we don't want the movie's protagonist to die at this point or there would be no more movie, but the Mangalore behavior was inconsistent.

Positives:
In the introductory part, there is a scene where an archaeologist looks at inscriptions in an Egyptian stone temple when the benevolent Mondoshawan spaceship appears at the doorway. There seems to be a time-dilation effect suggested by a unique sound effect for a split-second. This is an interesting surreal filmmaking technique that elicits a kind of anguish in the viewer. The sound effect shows the power of the alien race's technology, but is subtle about it. It's a nice filmmaking technique.

The costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier were fantastic! Whether it was the 23rd century policemen with their boxy shoulder pad armor, to Mr. Zorg's colorful outfit, to Korben's futuristic T-shirt to the Military soldier's costumes, the costumes were stylish, futuristic, and unique. The set design was equally good, whether it was the airport under construction to the sleek Fhloston Paradise cruise ship, to the President's room, the sets were beautifully made and appropriate for their desired settings. One can see the influence of the 1982 film Blade Runner in the similar set design of The Fifth Element.

Unlike many future films that are set too near in the future, The Fifth Element was set far enough in the future (the year 2263) that technological developments like multi-planet travel, human reconstitution, and flying cars could conceivably occur in the intervening years between now and that future time. Scarily, they even predict a future Earth population of 200 billion people!

The previously mentioned 'reconstitution of Leeloo' scene, although mentioned above in the 'Negatives' section, was also a Positive. The reassembly of her body cell by cell, tissue by tissue, is an interesting concept that foreshadows the widespread use of '3-D printers' that are just now being experimented with in this century.

Directing/Producing:
Luc Besson not only directed the movie, he also co-wrote the screenplay.

Acting:
Bruce Willis ably played an action hero. After becoming popular as the hero of Die Hard, Willis has a good reputation as the reluctant hero, who uses his muscles and everyman intellect to defeat the bad guys. Willis captured this same Die Hard essence for The Fifth Element. He succeeded in making us laugh at the many strange situations that his character, Korben Dallas, found himself in.

Ian Holm artfully played the nervous Father Vito Cornelius. He is known for prior roles as Ash, the android, in Alien (1979) and Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003).

Blade Runner's Brion James portrayed a good guy, military General Munro, in The Fifth Element. Mostly it was a good performance, although the delivery of some of his lines seemed a little wooden at times.

Sexy actress Milla Jovovich acted very nicely in this film, and conveyed the necessary emotions that Leeloo would be going through, like fear, uncertainty, curiosity, purpose, and strength.

Gary Oldman portrayed the wealthy villain Zorg, and he successfully conveyed the aura of power that the villain should possess, along with delivering Zorg's humorous human vulnerabilities.

Music:
Eric Serra did the music in this film. The Fifth Element had a mixture of modern pop-music style songs and the orchestral music that is so popular in sci-fi films. Not only was the choice of music during the incidental portions artfully composed, but the orchestral soundtrack for the action parts was brilliantly scored too. The aerial car chase had an interesting Arab fusion sound that was a unique way to score that high-action scene. The humorous scenes with radio announcer Ruby Rhod also had a cool funky electronic sound. We hear an excellent operatic score of the Diva singing and later switching to a more modern sounding song as, in juxtaposition, there are attacks from the alien Mangalores elsewhere on the ship. Later, the soundtrack switches to a more orchestral music that highlights the struggle to solve the puzzle of the Five Elements, and the poignant near death of Leeloo.

Sound:
The sound effects were well made and solid. The sound quality overall was above average.

Editing:
This movie showed very good editing by Sylvie Landra, and had excellent pacing in the edited shots.

Photography/SFX:
The photography was exquisite. The special effects of The Fifth Element were quite good, and they were the state-of-the-art when the movie was made in 1997. There was a daylight scene where the spacecraft took off from the modern skyline of New York City. This shot seemed to have odd lighting. However, in general, the special effects in this movie were fantastic. If the special effects were made today with modern computer graphics, they could have been only slightly better.

Favorite Part:
The aerial car chase scene was thrilling. This sort of scene could not have been made during Blade Runner's production, which had similar flying cars, since the visual effects in 1982 were less developed. A similar aerial car chase scene was found in one of the Star Wars prequels released in 2002. Did The Fifth Element chase scene influence how the later Star Wars movie looked?

Summary:
There were a few storyline mysteries such as the reconstitution of Leeloo's memories, and the identity of the alien Mondoshawans, but some of these were mysteries gradually revealed to the audience, so they served the movie. The film's message is a rather simple positive one: despite all the technological power possessed by Man, it is love upon which all depends. The Fifth Element was a well-directed, well-acted movie that was an action-filled fun time.