Funky intergalactic romp more of a bore than a horror

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Is there anybody out there? Hollywood seems to want movie-goers to think so, at least long enough to keep the box office busy. Directors are dueling in outer space, one-upping each other with one far-fetched idea after another (Independence Day, Men in Black, and the upcoming Gattaca). Yet as more latex- attired aliens run across cinema screens, audiences aren't worrying about Armageddon but instead about the film producers: is there anybody in there? Or have they escaped on the spaceships they've painstakingly crafted?

The latest of these intergalactic romps is Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. A cult of sorts in France, where Besson worked until Hollywood hijacked his flashy camerawork, The Fifth Element is unabashed in its love of sci-fi kitsch. At least we hope it's kitsch, because if Besson was unaware of the dense tack wrapping the film, then The Fifth Element is unforgivingly bad.

Let's give Besson the benefit of the doubt and some credit -- after all, his credentials are impeccable. The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita, Leon; Besson's films are banquets of visual delights. Some say this is the problem -- accusations of superficiality haunt him. Yet a light-handed approach towards plot and dialog depth doesn't make Besson a bad director.

Instead, Besson allows the actors to fill in the emotional spaces with quiet movements -- some of the most harrowing scenes in The Big Blue and Leon had few words. And if Besson's fluid cinematography and mood-rich art direction had speaking parts, his films' dramatic worth would howl instead of purr.

The Fifth Element, unfortunately, seems intent on letting out a self-conscious belch. From the giant spaceships to the Made-by- Mattel metal rhinoceros posing as aliens (Ooh, I'm scared) to the Band-Aid strips worn as a dress, this is all about show.

The plot? Think of a post-earthquake stucco floor; imagine the cracks.

It starts in Egypt, 1914, with two archaeologists studying a mural depicting the eternal battle between good and evil. When the planets eclipse every 5000 years, says the mural, evil escapes. What can fight this evil, a really sorry fireball heading towards Earth, is "the fifth element" (after water, fire, earth, and air) -- a "perfect being".

Here the drama unfolds. A spaceship lands, little green men come out with much talk of evil, which the space-age sages say will return in 300 years. So far, so bad, and what's worse, no big stars yet (a refugee from Beverly Hills 90210 -- that's Dylan to TV-philes and Luke Perry to everyone else -- just doesn't cut it).

Then it's fast forward to the 23rd century, the date of evil's return.

The camera is focused on the president of the United States (optimistically, a black man), or is it of the world? After all, the save-Earth campaign ensues in English, the scene of action in New York City, and the National Security Council look like red- beret boyscouts. How do the French feel about their native son's newly found America-centrism?

If the future looks this funky, some may say, who cares who's in charge. And when Bruce Willis (Pulp Fiction) finally appears, swaggering his lean muscles to match his smug grin, the movie picks up pace. Willis is Brooklynese taxi driver Corbin Dallas, who now treads the urban jungle in a yellow cab rather than his now-retired special services military uniform.

While dodging vertical trains and other hazards of a modern- day traffic nightmare amplified by a hundred times, Dallas is thrown (literally) by Leeloo, "the fifth element" come to human life (Russian supermodel Milla Jovovich). Leeloo is perfect indeed, her agile cellulite-free limbs setting back gymnast Nadia Comaneci a few back flips -- although it's hard to believe the "only weapon against evil" still gets scrapes and bruises. But Jovovich is inspired casting. Few can get away with that carrot- color bob without looking like a broom dipped in orange juice -- but Milla, lips like peaches and eyes like clear skies, looked, well, perfect. Even her wide-eyed performance is near-perfect, but only because she had so little dialog.

Leeloo's vernacular limitations does little to hinder inter- specie flirtation; everybody speaks the language of love. And the unlikely romance between Dallas and Leeloo surprisingly follows old-fashioned rules: love at first sight, heart-defying obstacles and a determined Romeo.

Which makes you think: this is just a standard cowboys-and- Indians flick. The plot has few imaginative turns, and unfolds without tension or suspense. No anxiety accompanies Earth's possible destruction, no emphatic scenes of on-the-street mayhem to make the audience care about the doom to come.

Story faults aside, the editing is crispy clean, as is expected of a Besson production. The camerawork is also cut with comic freshness -- Besson always compensates his flaws with ingenious cinematography. It's Besson's eye, not his intellect, that people watch.

The people watching are music and fashion's hippest names; Europe's pop elite come dancing when Besson calls. Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the far-out costumes. MTV host Sybil Buck has a cameo, as does bald model Eve. And trip-hop prodigy Tricky, renowned for his bad manners as well as his brilliant music, adds another achievement to his resume: bad acting.

Thankfully that madman of movies, the inimitable Gary Oldman (Dracula, Air Force One), is on hand to show the others how it's done. As gleefully bad guy Mister Zorg, an aspirational hick with a neo-Hitler haircut and goatee, Oldman is fatally funny. His Tenessee accent itself is toe-tickling; think Elvis with three layers of menace, not love handles. It's Oldman, cackling in his own bile, that saves this pretentious Sega game, high on the style barometer but low on substance, from getting blasted into the atmosphere.