And while the premise "hot chick turns out to be the secret weapon that will save the universe!" sounds good on paper, the realization is just lame. Yes, Milla Jovovich is pretty and has some good moves, and is occasionally cutely funny in her (character's) efforts to speak English, but she doesn't really have the magnetism to hold your attention in the midst of a weak film. And a special award of shame should go to Gary Oldman, who can be very good, but who rapidly descends into awful when he's just playing a caricature of his other roles. And come on, how stupid a supervillain do you have to be to make a deal with an ever-expanding ball of dark matter that calls you on the phone and makes your forehead bleed? He may promise you wealth, but I'm pretty sure there won't be anywhere to spend it once he consumes the entire fucking universe. Wise up, man. And as long as we're nitpicking, just how big is this universe we're talking about? People seem able to zip from one end of it to the other in a couple of hours at light speed. I have news for you, it takes four years traveling at light speed just to get to the nearest star from here, never mind halfway across the galaxy to fight the expanding ball of dark matter guy.
On the other hand, some of that stuff early on in the New York of the future or whatever is nicely done. Bruce Willis's tiny apartment is comically amusing, ha ha. I know, this movie is supposed to be campy or whatever. Well hallelujah. Try Flash Gordon; now that's campy. This is just Luc Besson smoking too much weed.
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it also remains the #1 DVD to show off your projector according to those crazy hi-fi forums.
I do in theory like that the Fifth Element attempted to break the "future = grim and dark" concept in hollywood, except that it turns out that I really prefer my futures grim and dark. or at least people by people who speak monosyllabically at the lower end of the tonal range.
It also gets some points over, say, 12 Monkeys -- whereas 12 Monkeys wants to be deep but turns out to be less complex the closer you look at it (though I still like many things about it), the Fifth Element never claims to be more than it is and therefore at least does not deceive.
I like the movie for the little details ("Glass. Water. A cherry!"), and hate it for the larger ones (Ruby Rod, aka the radio host). And that diva, yeah. Crap.
To redeem Besson, check out "Wasabi", which is Besson-produced I think. Jean Reno in Japan as a French cop who... oh, the plot is silly. Just check it out.
Gary Oldman was great, if only for his outfit and hairstyle, which has been reproduced point for point in quite a few films.
The only nitpick I have with the movie is that they shut one of the good aliens inside the temple when they leave in the flashback scenes - whatever happens to that guy? They never explain.
The host sucked, but I'm not partial to Chris Tucker. He's an actor we can all do without.
Seno-apta-gammach "not without my permission"
As a side note, I think Chris Tucker should be forced to wear that haircut in 'Rush Hour 12: I have Children to Feed'.