 An excellent
sci-fi film set in the future with the all  elements of a good storyline, excitement,
fun, humor, good music, light relief, fighting, action, a hostage
situation, a car chase, a mission to save the world, a love story,
evil villains, a great hero and a beautiful heroine, a variety of
settings, a trip to Egypt, light-speed space ships, a bomb on a timer,
a mystery and some stunning visual effects.
The Plot:
In 1914 an archeologist
discovers a great truth in an old temple, about the fifth element
and a weapon that destroys the Evil that comes to visit the Earth
every 5,000 years. A priest then appears, and then a huge space ship,
belonging to the Mondoshawan arrives, and they take the stones and
the statue from inside the secret chamber of the temple, they are
the five elements (fire, water, earth, wind, a perfect supreme being).
300 years later the Evil
is coming to Earth to destroy it. The Mondoshawan are taking the fifth
element on their ship to Earth, but are destroyed by Mangalore assassins
and crash. Only the hand of the supreme being is left, which is taken
to Earth and from the DNA a new body is created,  and it is a perfect woman
(played by Milla Jovovich). She is the fifth element. She escapes
from the laboratory where she was brought back to life and ends up
in a taxi, driven by Korben Dallas (played by Bruce Willis), an ex-army
Major. After a dramatic car chase in the air, Korben takes her to
a priest  named Cornelius, the contact for the Mondoshawan. He realises
who she is and realises what must be done, and goes off to warn the
President.
The Earth’s government
hires Korben Dallas and rigs a contest to give him 2 tickets to Fhloston
Paradise, a ship hotel on a far-off planet. There also the four stones
from the temple (the four elements) will be taken to rendezvous with
the fifth element, who calls herself Mina Lekatariba Laminatcha Ekbat D Sebat or
Leeloo for short.
All the while the evil
Zorg is trying to get the stones to sell them to Mr. Shadow, representing
the great Evil approaching Earth in a huge planet-like ship, which
is being tracked by Earth’s defences but they cannot destroy
it. Zorg hires the dog-like aliens called Mangalores who are also
shape-changers to find the stones, but they  only bring him back the empty case that they
were once in. He is annoyed and hires his own men to get the stones.
The Mangalores are fed up and go off to get the stones but also want
revenge on Zorg for not letting them have four cases of weapons but
only one.
Korben Dallas ends up
taking Leeloo with him as his wife to Fhloston Paradise, to get the
four stones. Cornelius sneaks on board the ship to go too. Also on
board is Ruby Rhod, a wildly extravagant and effeminate disc jockey
who interviews Korben before leaving, although Korben gives nothing
away.
They arrive at Fhloston
Paradise and Leeloo meets the people who have the four stones. One
of the people in that party is the diva opera singer Plava Laguna,
and she is singing that evening, where Korben and Ruby Rhod are in
the audience. But the Mangalores are there too, and after her song,
they cause trouble. They seek out the stones in Plava Laguna’s
room, but Leeloo is there and she kills them all. Then Zorg arrives
and takes the box which he thinks contains the stones, but it is actually
empty. By the time he discovers this he is on his way back home, and
then has to return to Fhloston Paradise. He had planted a bomb there
as well on a timer.
The Mangalores decide
to attack after the diva’s singing, and start shooting everyone.
The diva is shot, and Korben goes to her to ask her where the stones are. She tells
him they are “in me”, so he reaches his hand inside her
wounded body and pulls out the four stones. The stones are actually
about 25 centimeters long and triangular in their cross-section. He
wraps them in his jacket, asks Ruby to hold them, and then starts
shooting Mangalores to make their escape.
Eventually he stops the
Mangalores by killing their leader, after the leader took Cornelius
hostage. Once he has killed the Mangalore leader the others will not
fight. Then he finds Leeloo, and she is wounded and he takes her,
Ruby, the stones, and Cornelius onto Zorg’s ship, just after
Zorg returns to look for the stones. Zorg finds his timing device
for the bomb and stops it, only for the Mangalores to continue the
countdown, and the ship hotel is destroyed (it was evacuated earlier
when the bomb was detected).
So Korben and co. head
off back for Earth, and tell the President what is happening. They
arrive in Egypt with the huge planet-like ship of Evil headng quickly
for Earth as well. They arrive in the temple with the stones and Leeloo,
and place the stones in place. They get them to open and then need
to get Leeloo to do her bit to save the universe, but she is unsure,
as she saw earlier how mankind had gone to war so often and the suffering
that it caused, and she asks why save humanity because it destroys
everything it creates. Korben tells her there are good things to save
humanity for. She suggests love, and says she never knew love. Korben
tells her he loves her, etc. She then does her bit and the five elements
unite and form a huge weapon that destroys the Evil and renders it
lifeless and harmless, like a huge dead rock orbiting the Earth.
An excellent film which
is well worth watching. Get it on video if you can, or on DVD disk
or whatever it is available on. I just bought the video, and already
bought the soundtrack CD after seeing the film twice last year.
Some classic
quotes from the film:
[Father Cornelius and Ruby Rhod see the bomb stuck to the door]
Cornelius: It’s a — it’s a — it’s
a — it’s a — it’s a — it’s a —
Ruby Rhod: No no no no no no. If it were a bomb, wouldn’t
we be hearing the alarms? All these hotels have bomb detectors.
[The alarms sound]
Zorg: This case is empty.
Aknot: What?
Zorg: Empty. The opposite of full. This case is supposed to
be full!
Aknot: You asked for a case. We brought you a case.
Zorg: A case with four stones in it! What the hell am I supposed
to do with an empty case?
Aknot: We are warriors, not merchants.
Zorg: But you can still count!
The President: The Mondoshawans never fully trusted the human
race.
Leeloo: Everything you create, you use to destroy.
Korben Dallas: Yeah, we call it human nature.
David: Father, are you sure she’s a supreme being?
Head Scientist: Anticipation denotes intelligence.
Police: Are you classified as human?
Dallas: No, I am a meat popsicle.
DJ Ruby Rhod: Quiver ladies, quiver!
DJ Ruby Rhod: We’ll find out everything there is to know
about the D man: his dreams, his desires, his most intimates of intimates,
and from what I’m looking at, intimate is this stud
muffin’s middle name! So tell me my man, are you nervous in the
service?
Korben Dallas: Mmm... not really.
Korben Dallas: I only speak two languages — English and
bad English.
Leeloo: Me fifth element — supreme being. Me
protect you.
Leeloo: I do not know love. I was trained to protect, not
to love.
Cornelius: Evil begets evil. Shooting it only makes it stronger.
Links for the Fifth Element
Miscellaneous (some might
not work any more)
- MovieWeb
- Cinema1
- Film
Scouts page with trailer, stills, interviews, PR material
- Reviews,
info, pics etc.
- Win95
loading screens
- The
Video Clips Page
- Page
sur le cinquième élément
- Fan
page
- Luc
Besson Page featuring archive, production histories, news, biography
- Information
on the on-going production of the film
- Kinoweb
(German)
- Arts,
Entertainment and Recreation’s page
|
Leeloo’s full
name: Mina Lekatariba Laminatcha Ekbat D Sebat
