‘No matter what’s been written, said, or shot, a movie is ultimately made on the cutting room floor.’
That’s an industry truism that certainly applies to Luc Besson’s pulpy science-fiction saga, The Fifth Element, playing this Saturday night at the Union South Marquee — doubly true next to Terry Gilliam’s comparatively reserved Twelve Monkeys, playing the night before. To put it politely, tracking The Fifth Element‘s half-dozen simultaneous plot points requires utmost focus when its briskly-paced hero cycle is packaged in fantastical, eclectic production design. To phrase it not so politely, it all makes for a fun mess.
With its idealistic space fantasy and high-low aesthetic (picture a candy pop paint job smashed against drab rows of skyscrapers), The Fifth Element is a perfect fit for the WUD Film Committee’s late night programming, long a home to cult hits and little-seen gems. Besson’s goofy tone and jarring bursts of violence seem less like a summer blockbuster and more like a Grindhouse gem (another of WUD’s late night staples). Or rather, they would if Bruce Willis’s performance didn’t play so effectively off the hyperbole. (see: Chris Tucker’s everything.)
Once an elite major and now a negligent New York cab driver, Willis’s Korben Dallas is the gruff face of incredulity in an imagined future of crazy. Drawing from John McClane’s “fish out of water” status in the early Die Hard pictures, Willis reacts to much of Besson’s onslaught of prophesies and caricatures with a shrug and smirk. Alongside Milla Jovovich’s surprisingly nuanced turn as Leeloo, Willis’s workmanlike stoicism is the anchor in a heavily-produced sea of flash and flare. You’d be surprised how far that goes when Gary Oldman’s industrialist, sporting a “half Hitler” hairdo and all, is firing experimental military weapons at Mangalore merchants.
- The Fifth Element plays FREE on Saturday at 11:30p in the Union South Marquee Theater.