The Fifth Element Review (1997) – A fun, unique, uncomfortable, problematic, cringe worthy, trope filled, action packed Sci-Fi adventure!

Oh this one, this one you guys, was a tough one for us to touch on. This movie has enormous nostalgia factors for us. We have not watched it in years and when we decided to rewatch it and write about it for you wonderful people…we were so excited!

That is until we actually rewatched it…oh goodness. It is a real trip of a film, with a lot of sexist tones to it as well as obnoxious tropes that simply do no service to the characters or the film. This movie was such a mixed bag for us to watch!

We still have so much appreciation for the film and we still have love for the film…but holy shit were there so many odd and problematic things that, as adults, are simply too garish not to see.

We want to put in some trigger warnings here for you all to be aware of, this film has a lot of misogynistic, sexist undertones, coercive rape, making femininity, women and Tran’s or non-binary individuals appear to be laughable, silly and “fragile”…it is a complicated film.

On the one hand: representation! On the other hand…the way they wrote the characters was…well, rude and shortsighted to say the least. This movie is long, with a lot of content, so we will be abbreviating more than usual for this one. Let’s get into this controversial, problematic, emotional rollercoaster of a film!

We will do everything we can to not give too many spoilers in this review but there are likely to be some, so please take that into consideration and read cautiously.

The movie begins with a shot of space, and a strange looking spaceship approaching earth. We move down to the earth, specifically to Egypt in the year 1914.

Inside, what appears to be an ancient monument of some kind, an older man, who is referred to as the professor, (John Bluthal), is studying a specific set of glyphs that portray an ancient evil returning to the planet Earth and a savior figure…a savior figure called the fifth element!

A “Father” (John Bennett), of some unknown deity attempts to murder the professor because the professor is discovering too much…this was a bit confusing because this was 1914…the likelihood of anyone taking the professor seriously about his findings is slim, and the likelihood of people taking the “every 5,000 year visit from evil” idea seriously, is  equally unlikely. Killing the Professor feels…extreme to us. But we digress!

The Father cannot take any chances! So he tries to poison the Professor but fails. Shortly after this the giant space ship that we saw earlier lands right in front of this monument. The Aliens are here!

The Alien design is incredibly interesting and fun! They are in some sort of suit that must protect their actual bodies. They are so strange, but very cool to look at!

They waddle into the monument to collect the stones that are held within a secret chamber. The stones of the elements that will assist the fifth element in destroying the evil.

Here, we get a glimpse into the sacred temple, the pillars where the stones must be, and the center platform where the fifth element must stand.

The Aliens take everything within the temple and leave. Unfortunately for one of the aliens, the doors to the temple close on him, but he is able to give the Father the key to open the temple to pass down from generation to generation.

We jump to a human space ship this time 300 years in the future! Sci-Fi has always had such high hopes for us in regards to our technological advancement.

Anyway, 300 years later and some strange giant round mass of what looks like pure molten lava is approaching.

We cut to the President’s chambers where the President, (Tom Lister Jr.), is discussing this mass with the spacecraft’s captain but he gets interrupted by another Priest! This priest, Cornelius, (Ian Holm) believes that this mass is the absolute evil that is coming to destroy Earth.

The President does not really believe the priest and tells the captain to shoot the object. Which only causes the mass to grow. They shoot it some more…the mass continues to triple and quadruple in size. It moves towards the ship…and destroys it.

Cut to Major Korben Dallas, (Bruce Willis), a down on his luck ex-military man, who is trying to do his best to keep his record clean, and to just live a normal life as a cab driver. We see Korben go through his morning routine, chat with a friend, etc. before he gets into his futuristic flying cab to start his work day.

An important thing to note is that the city is extremely high up in the air, and the cars all fly! Something must have occurred to the actual earth below, but we cannot see because there is a layer of fog that obscures the ground. As a result there are cities in the sky! It is an interesting concept and fun to watch all of the cars driving in traffic.

Cut back to the President’s office with Cornelius explaining the ancient texts, and describing the Evil to the President. The President is still not sure what to think, but he is listening.

Meanwhile, the divine aliens from the start of the film are returning to take care of this Evil, but their ship is attacked by other aliens! Apparently, there are some creatures that want the Evil to win! No real surprise there. Again the costume design for the aliens is great and attention-grabbing!

The divine alien’s ship gets destroyed! All hope seems to be lost because the being on that ship was supposed to be the Fifth Element! The Supreme Being!

We are going to skirt around our antagonist, Zorg (Gary Oldman), for the most part, but we have to give a brief description here! He is a great character and an epic bad guy. Zorg is a filthy rich, giant corporation owning, Evil loving odd ball! He spends the film trying to help the Evil in any way he can, and coordinating with the other aliens that have no problem helping the Evil. We love him! He is hilarious!

We meet Zorg briefly before we cut back to the President’s office, Cornelius is distraught and we finally learn what species of alien that the fifth element is, the Mondoshawan. It seems like there is little to be done…well except for the fact that they found a piece of the Supreme Being’s arm!

They decide that with their insane technology that they can take the arm of the Mondoshawan, and reconstruct an entire body from it!

Another thing to note is that throughout this film, it has been assumed that the Supreme Being would be a man. Well, they go through the process of rebuilding this person…and low and behold…it is not a man! It is a woman!

Which was really no surprise to us, not only because we were already familiar with this film, but because it just makes sense that the Supreme giver of life would not be male. But the men in this film are truly surprised!

The movie really starts to get a bit itchy here. It really seems to pat itself on the back A LOT because the Supreme Being was cast as female...which is great! We have no problems with that AT ALL. But we got the impression that the filmmakers were overly pleased with themselves because of this. As if the fact that a woman is the Supreme Being makes up for…all of the other problems we see.

Also…she comes into this world naked after the reconstruction, and then is dressed in bandages that barely cover anything at all. Understandable! She was just built in this Sci-Fi machine and there are no clothes in it!

But still, we felt something better could have been done here…but this is only the tip of the sexist iceberg with this movie. Moving on! The Fifth Element, (Milla Jovovich), wakes up startled, and terrified. She breaks out of the containment chamber and jumps through…the wall?!

It is odd, but that’s what she does! She jumps through the wall, finds her way into the duct system, and out of the building…sort of. She finds her way to the outside of the building…but it is a giant skyscraper. She stands on a tiny ledge. Staring out into the traffic of flying cars.

It is all overwhelming and new to her, yet her resilience is strong and she embraces radical acceptance. She tries to find a way around the building by walking around the ledge. The police try to collect her but she decides to simply leap off of the ledge!

Falling far down, she crashes right through the roof of Korben’s cab! Korben is shocked, surprised, and angry. He pulls over to see what happened, and that is when he first lays eyes on The Fifth Element.

We see her try to communicate with Korben while at the same time looking adorable. She has strong manic pixie dream girl vibes and despite the fact that she is supposed to be a main character…she feels like she is there to be rescued by Korben.

Le sigh. The cops show up and try to get Korben to give her up to them. Korben, of course, without knowing who she is at all, just decides that he is going to help her. She does ask for help…but still. The whole thing is weird!

Korben speeds off and a classic car chase ensues, but flying through the air! Another odd thing that we noted during the car chase, was when we see some cops at a McDonald’s drive thru. Apparently, all of the McDonald’s employees are female, with skimpy red dresses, and silly red wigs. Why bring this up you may wonder? Well, we will get to that more a bit later. Back to the chase!

 The chase scene is super exciting! It is silly, has a lot of good jokes that still hit, while at the same time being very engaging. There is still much fun to be had when watching this film, but it has not aged half as well as would have been appropriate for a film like this…but again we digress!

Korben manages to get away, and she manages to tell him “Veto Cornelius, priest…” before she passes out from being knocked around the cab so much.

Korben somehow finds Cornelius! How? No idea! Maybe Cornelius is the only Cornelius in that city? Maybe he is the only one that is a priest? Either way Korben finds him, and brings her unconscious body to him.

Cornelius thinks Corbin is unhinged until he sees the tattoo of the stone patterns on her arm. Cornelius loses it and passes out. Corbin wakes Cornelius up, but she is still unconscious.

Cornelius is thrilled. He is surprised to find that she is a woman, but overall, he is very happy. He then tells Korben some of the most cringe crap, “She is mankind’s most precious possession. She is perfect.” Then he runs off to get into his fancier priestly robes.

BARF. This is another problematic theme throughout the film, this rhetoric that she is perfect in every way and only there to be used by mankind. Emphasis on the MAN part. The perfect woman in general…and she is an object to be possessed. Our eyes rolled so hard.

Number one, there is no such thing as perfect. No one is perfect. No one will ever be or has ever been perfect. This is not a good precedent to set for women and girls at all and not only that, it is awful for everyone!

Number two, women are not objects to be possessed. People are not objects to be possessed. Women are people with all of the complexities that come with being a person. Women are not things for the world to consume.

This shit is dated, misogynistic, and highly damaging. It is exhausting, infuriating and demoralizing that these things are still an issue today. But we have to get back to the film, and as much as it pains us to say…the film is still entertaining.

She wakes up because Korben kisses her…which of course is not welcome but Korben learns her name finally! Her name is Leeloo! (Milla Jovovich).

Korben leaves her with Cornelius and drives his broken down cab back to his place. He chats with his friend again and describes Leeloo to him...now we know this may surprise you…but the word “perfect” comes up again.

He describes her physically, and calls her perfect. SIGH. Like we said, this is a common theme throughout the movie. She is described as perfect, supreme, all powerful, but fragile at the same time. She is the epitome of the manic pixie dream girl trope and Korben is smitten.

Cut back to Cornelius’s home. Leeloo is learning English via the computer extraordinarily rapidly.

Cornelius is trying to understand what happened to the stones, and how they are going to get them back. They have her…but they still do not have the stones and they need all of the “objects” to stop the Evil.

We are going to try to wrap up here because this truly is a long, and very busy film. The rest of the movie involves trying to get to the stones that are no longer on the planet Earth, back to the planet Earth! Where are the stones you may ask?! On an alien planet cruise ship!

Protecting Leeloo is a must, because she is the Supreme Being…no male supreme being would need as much protecting or be portrayed as if they were so “fragile”, but ok.

Now, earlier we mentioned the McDonald’s employees all being women whose uniforms are revealing for no logical reason. Well, they are not the only women in this movie dressed in the strangest of ways just to be revealing! The Airport workers are women and they have strange cut outs in their outfits to showcase the tops of their breasts.

The airline stewardesses! Are extremely scantily clad…why? No reason! No logical reason anyway. The female cruise staff? Wearing bikinis and sarongs. It was all so blatant. They did not even try being subtle.

The women in this movie, including Leeloo, are there to be objects, and servers. They are merely there to please men, and to make the men look good. Once you see it…you cannot unsee it.

This gave us the ICK. ICK!! Why?!! It was all so unnecessary! Why?! We do not know…and the only answer we could come up with is sexism. Which made us so sad because we still love Leeloo even though we realized how poorly written she is. Barf.

Moving forward, Leeloo and Korben develop feelings for each other, and other zany, whacky and problematic characters are added to the mix on the way to the cruise space ship. One in particular being the character Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker). This character is an interesting one to say the least.

Funny, but only to a point. He is a coercive rapist, a womanizer, and an all-around obnoxious person…with a twist. He comes across as potential Trans or non-binary! Which is great at first! His dress is far more effeminate (which he totally rocks by the way), and his mannerisms could be described as potentially “diva” like or “feminine”.

On the one hand it is wonderful to see what looks like more representation in this movie! But that is exactly the problem. It looks like representation, but it does not feel like it is. Ruby Rhod is more of a caricature or satire of a Tran’s or non-binary individual.

Ruby is “funny”, but in an incredibly obnoxious and misogynistic fashion. He treats all of the women around him horribly and the women of course allow it because he is famous in this world. This makes some sense…but at the same time it does not make the way his character behaves and how he was written ok at all.

He is simply there to showcase how manly, calm, together and badass Korben is in comparison…he is written as a complete and horrible joke. SIGH.

You would think that in a movie like this, it would not revolve so much around Korben Dallas. But it does. Everyone around him even the SUPREME BEING are there for Korben. It is strange when you think about it.

We are going to leave it here so we do not give anything more away, but we hope that we were able to give you a solid picture of the film!

We want to be very clear here, we still have a lot of love for this film. It is nostalgic and it is still a fun and action packed Sci-Fi to watch. However, this does not excuse the piss poor writing, costume design, and all around portrayal of women, Trans and non-binary people in this film.

This is such a difficult movie for us potatoes to review. We had so much love for this film as kids, and we still do to a degree. It also makes us sad. How was this OK? How did we not see it sooner? Was it all so normalized to us as children that we simply overlooked it? Probably…but it is hard to say.

Overall, this movie is still a thrilling ride with a lot of great acting, a very interesting story, and entertaining Sci-Fi technology! If you are someone who enjoys those things then this is a good movie for you! The drinking game was helpful, so we highly recommend giving it a try for this one!

But we do have to warn you, the problems within this film are garish, triggering, and uncomfortable. We have very complicated feelings in regards to this picture. We have to consider everything…and it was difficult to rate. We think that the rating we are giving is fair considering. We do not hate this film because it was still incredibly entertaining…but we do not love it anymore either.

We give this movie 3 out of 5 glasses of scotch!

The Fifth Element Drinking Game

Take a sip anytime:

1.     You hear "Aziz, LIGHT!!" Or you hear the name Aziz

2.     Aliens on screen

3.     Anyone says or mentions the fifth element

4.     Anyone mentions “the stones”

5.     Anyone says "The Evil" or “Evil”

6.     Anyone says "Life"

7.     Anyone says “Zorg”

8.     President on screen

9.     Blatant ad placement

10.  Anyone says "mission"

11.  Anyone says "Perfect"

12.  Korben hears from his mother

13.  Korben is funny or badass

14.  Korben complains

15.  Leeloo struggles with English

16.  Leeloo speaks the divine language

17.  Leeloo has a badass moment

18.  Anyone says "green" or "super green"

19.  Ruby Rhod says "bzzzzt"

20.  Ruby Rhod screams

21.  Ruby Rhod says "My Man"

What did you think?? Did you like the movie? Did you hate it!? Is this a nostalgic film for you? Do you have suggestions for other films we should consider watching?! Let us know here in the comments and always remember to be safe and drink responsibly!