Just saw a couple movies at the Paramount Theater here in Austin that I didn't really appreciate when they came out. This time, however, I greatly enjoyed them and would recommend them to anyone for at least a rent, though they are still hardly masterpieces.
Waaaay back in 1997, my favorite movies were The Lost World, Independence Day, and Batman Forever. Shudder. I even liked Batman & Robin and Godzilla (1998) when they came out, two movies that I now loathe beyond all others. What can I say, I was a stupid little kid. Two movies that I didn't like so much, because they weren't as flashy, weren't as conventional, and the humor was marginally more sophisticated, were The Fifth Element and Mars Attacks! And those were the movies that I decided to give another chance to last night.
The Fifth Element is a Bruce Willis sci-fi/action flick that is really a weird beast. It's probably most remembered for its depiction of New York in 2214, a crazy city of towers and beat-up hovercars that was influenced by Blade Runner and Heavy Metal and in turn influenced Attack of the Clones and other sci-fi movies. If you're male, however, you might remember it for nearly-naked Milla Jovovich and some of the most over-the-top small arms in sci-fi.
The plot is bizarre, and that helped turn me off to the movie way back when...it's sort of a Dungeons and Dragons plot stuck into sci-fi (there are even space orcs). Stones representing the four classical elements (!) plus a "perfect life form" (Jovovich) representing the "Fifth Element, life" all have to be gathered in one place every five thousand years to defeat Evil, which for some reason is a big flaming planet that appears out of nowhere whenever three other planets are "in alignment." I remember being bothered by exactly how little the nature and motives of Evil are ever discussed...in fact, its hardly *in* the movie except for the beginning and the end. We only see his henchman, Zorg (Gary Oldman), who despite having no motive that makes sense is extremely watchable. Oh, and Evil can make people bleed from the forehead for some reason. Yeah.
So that part of the movie isn't any better than I remembered, but I do appreciate several "elements" that flew way over my head as a kid. First off, there are a few scenes (notably in the opera) where the use of music to enhance the action is extraordinary. Second, despite having an extremely simple germ of a plot, Besson (the director) somehow executes it in the most twisted and darkly amusing of ways. For instance, the main character Korben Dallas (Willis) is a badass ex-special forces major who the government wants to travel to some planet and retrieve the four stones. So they rig a contest so that he is made the winner, so that he has a berth on the ship that's going there. However, as the military is showing up to brief him on this mission, the "perfect being" shows up with a priest in tow, who also wants the elements. The police also shows up to arrest Dallas on behalf of some of the villains, who are feuding with Zorg. Dallas tricks the police into taking the wrong guy, gets KOed by the priest who takes his ticket, then accepts the military mission. One frozen general, disguised alien, and exploding guy later, no fewer than FOUR "Korben Dallases" try to board that plane.
I'm still not sure I understand why the movie is as popular as it is, as it's not very good, but it's better than I remembered, mostly for the madcap second act (the first and third are weak). It's also got a good mix of humor and action, and a knack for surprising you.
Mars Attacks! is nothing but black humor, which I didn't always appreciate as a kid. It's also quite slow at times, until the Martians really start attacking in earnest. Still, I found myself laughing quite a bit, because the film excels in setting up worthless, imbecilic characters who are then killed by Martians in amusing and outrageous ways. Especially these days, watching Martians blow up Congress--to raucous laughter from one of the characters--is nothing short of therapeutic. And the visual effects are of a sort that you don't often see anymore: rejecting realism in favor of just looking cool and fascinating (and funny!).
I'm not the biggest Tim Burton fan, but this is one of my favorite of his films, now that I appreciate it more. And the ending takes the piss out of The War of the Worlds so hard that I'm amazed Spielberg remade it a few years later. (It's actually a more direct reference to Godzilla vs. Monster Zero.) Again, far from the greatest flick but well worth watching once if you want to see a bunch of movie stars acting like assholes and getting blown away, not to mention some loving homages to old-school alien and disaster movies.
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I think what makes Fifth Element so popular is its visual aesthetic. For 1997 it's a science fiction vision that really does stand pretty well on its own: New York is beautifully executed, the weird precursor aliens are kind of unique (Space orcs... well, not as much), as is the opera singer.
ReplyDeleteBut above all, it's fun. It's kind of like the Transformers of the time - not terribly awesome, but funny and pretty to look at.