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| Bruce's giant head chasing cop cars in space. |
I don’t know what to make of the fact that the scene I remember most in this film is an elderly professor yelling “Aziz! Light!” A lot of people I’ve spoken to about this film seem to remember this scene well, but few seem to be able to recall the very next scene where a giant spaceship lands outside the dig site in Egypt. This looks like nothing so much as a giant turd being shat out of the sky onto the desert plains below; no doubt a hard hitting metaphor for the current state of politics in the middle east.
This movie is still - visually - very good looking, even though it is currently – like my ex girlfriend – celebrating its 13th birthday. It’s amusing to see these days just how much modern cinema depends on CGI when only 10 years ago they made do with what they had and only digitally added what they couldn’t possibly do for real with a camera, a few egg cartons and a box of watercolours. Yes, James Cameron, I’m looking at you. How could you make two of the greatest sci-fi films in the last 20 years (Aliens and Terminator 2) with minimal CGI and then turn around and make the digital shit-fest that is Avatar – a film containing about 12 frames of actual film.
Ok, back to the movie at hand.
The story is that every 5000 years three planets align and have synchronised solar eclipses... eclipsii? I don’t think there is a collective noun for that yet. Anyway, these events create a gateway to another dimension, or some shit, and an evil is released into the universe with the sole intent on eradicating all life in favour of death and evil and black rimmed glasses and My Chemical Romance concerts. Naturally there is only one man who can save us and the universe from this bleak future. A man so close to the status of demi-god that he needs his own paragraph:
Bruce - motherfucking - Willis.
Willis plays Korben Dallas, an ex-military cab driver with a bad attitude and a problem with ‘Johnny Law’. Now, every hero needs a villain, so we have Gary Oldman on hand as Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, some Frenchy pinko queer with a stupid surname and the evil head of a weapons conglomerate who is working for the evil ball of naughtiness that is invading the universe. Zorg hires a group of alien mercenaries, who look like the brown love-children of Willem Dafoe and John C. Reilly, to shoot down a space craft which is transporting 4 stones which are the key to defeating the darkness and retrieve said stones.
The only survivor of the crashed spaceship is Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), a feisty little redhead who is the perfect being, the fifth element and a very snappy dresser. She lands in the lap of Korben who is then hired by the military to help secure the 4 stolen stones, only they weren’t stolen and are secretly being transported inside a big blue woman dressed in a big blue burqa.
I probably should have said at the start that there may be spoilers, but honestly if you haven’t seen a 13 year old movie with Bruce Willis in it then that’s your own damn fault.
Anyway, the rest of the movie is pretty predictable. Bruce Willis kills a lot of people and blah, blah, blah the end. It’s really not important to go on from here. What is important, however, is that this movie was and still is so awesome, even though – much like a child in multiple system failure – it’s got some pretty severe disabilities.
First off it stars Luke Perry. Yes, the Luke Perry; who’s triumphs after his 90210 career include the made-for-TV classics like: Indiscreet and The Enemy. Yes Luke, you clearly made it on your own, and weren’t carried on the back of a long dead TV series like a sad jockey flogging a dead horse at all.
Secondly we have Chris Tucker, who does what he does in every movie he’s ever been in, and screams in that high pitched ‘girl in distress’ tone that he has the whole fucking time he’s on screen. Man, I don’t know how that guy keeps getting employed. Didn’t anyone at New Line Cinema watch Rush Hour and go, “I don’t think his acting skills are as good as everyone seems to think”. And why does he have a bleach-blonde dick growing out of his head the entire movie? Who thought that was a great look?
And lastly there is lee Evans, who won our hearts as that crippled guy in There’s Something About Mary, and as the straight guy from Mousehunt. How did they hire such a brilliant actor and screenwriter, whose writing credits are all for shows starting with “Lee Evans:” or “The World of Lee Evans”. How big must his ego be that he thinks his life so important and interesting that no 1 show could possible encompass all you have to offer to humanity, so you write 8... about yourself... written by yourself. I’m starting to think that the only person to find Lee Evans funny is Lee Evans.
At the end of the day, and despite its many faceted and flawed surface, this movie shines like a diamond... in a big dog poo, poking its glittering head out at the narrower end, the ‘pinched’ end, that’s always full of hair for some reason. It’s good, and I’d definitely go out of my way to prise it free from its faecal housing as it is certainly worth a watch; and an enjoyable one too. But I’d still get poop on me for picking it up.
Is it just me or did everyone want to bone Milla Jovovich badly after this film? Leeloo Dallas, Multipass. Yeah, a multipass to my dick! Am I right?
I give it 6 'Lee Evans Live' shows out of 8.
(Why is it that the only words my spell check told me weren’t real words were: Jovovich, Korben and Burqa. Oh, Bill Gates, you sly old dog you.)
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