"I Told You, [Almost] Perfect."
If I could Frankenstein my way into making the world’s greatest movie, without a doubt I would take the world building and small details from The Fifth Element. As movie watchers, we’re so obsessed with being immersed in a story and world; especially, when movies are futuristic or some weird ass alternative timeline, it’s always hard to get into the movie unless there’s some content of lore-centric books or seven prequels that cult-like fans know front to back. Basically, it’s hard to care about a lot of sci-fi movies and franchises if they’re not Star Wars or Star Trek. (Stop talking if you even want to say something about Star Trek originally being a TV show. Shut up before I shove you in a locker, nerd.) However, Fifth Element has the perfect mix of not-so-subliminal brand marketing and world building that viewers can quickly immerse themselves into and know exactly what to expect.
The Fifth Element is property of Gaumont.
Truthfully, I find the main characters of The Fifth Element kind of boring. Bruce Willis’ character is a tired ex-military type, and the savior of the universe is some pale white girl. That department lacks, but the side characters? They totally make the movie. Chris Tucker’s Ruby Rhodd is a blessing to this film. His character alone sets up a world outside of the plot of the movie. He’s a well known radio personality, (he’s like a more powerful and loud Ryan Seacrest), and uses slang like “super green.” There’s a whole life of pop culture we don’t know about in Fifth Element and that just really entertains me. We’re not even told this, we just assume because all the hints are there. Even the scenes with Baby Ray, the actor who can’t hear for shit, throws Korben billiard balls instead of a gun, adding to the realness of the situation.
Besides actual characters and actions, the details really makes hits the mark when it comes to world building. Since this movie was made 20 years ago, there are a few blunders that show the age of the movie. For instance, Korben finds Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm) by looking through a phone book. The only reason that I even keep phone books in my house at this point is to see if I can actually rip one in half. Also, the navigation in the cabs and police vehicles are ugly Tron-esk matrix looking pieces of shit. Granted, Google Maps is ugly as sin too, but at least it looks better than what The Fifth Element assumed navigation would look like in the future. Who knows, maybe we’ll go back to ugly retro electronic graphics. However, I like to think this also adds to the charm to the movie. For instance, when Right Arm (Tricky) gets intel by remote controlling a cockroach oddly spoke volumes to me. If this movie was made in 2017, that scene would probably be done with some silent drone or a miniature Romba or some shit but since 1997 couldn’t predict everything perfectly, we got a remote controlled cockroach.
There’s a lot of history to consider when it comes to The Fifth Element as well. In the beginning, we see an archeologist uncover the truth about history, setting the stage for the movie. Plenty of fans focus on the memorable “Aziz, light,” quote but if you think about it, this hidden cult and the Mondoshawan race have been in contact with each other for 9700 years. Mesopotamians were chilling with aliens saving the world, and that’s, for a lack of better words, fucking awesome. I also love that the Mondoshawans are also still alive and have advanced 300 years into the future just like humans. It’s the little details about people’s races that really bring this movie home.
It’s obvious that so much thought was put into this, from the overly filtered cigarettes, to culture hinted at by quips and suggestive slang. There’s something about Fifth Element that has me never shutting up about it. Of course, I have a ton of complaints about the movie, mostly about how Korben thinks with his dick, but for the most part I love this movie and will never waste an opportunity to talk about it.
