The Fifth Element

Friday, October 27 - Saturday, October 28, 2017

DCP Projection

“Luc Besson’s science-fiction blast THE FIFTH ELEMENT has to be the most creative visualization since Tim Burton’s first Batman in 1989. It’s an amalgam of every science fiction cliche about flying cars, evil forces and benevolent outer-space creatures — most of them dusted off and made new. All the elements cohere into a single vision of a completely other world. In THE FIFTH ELEMENT, it’s just understood that a woman can be cloned, or that Bruce Willis drives a flying yellow cab through a Brooklyn cityscape unlike any other ever imagined.

Yet all the pretty pictures would mean nothing if THE FIFTH ELEMENT didn’t move. It does. And it’s fun.

Bruce Willis plays Korben, a 23rd century Brooklyn cab driver and retired government agent who is charged with safeguarding a young woman and seeing her to a special location. There, she’ll participate in a rite that will avert the otherwise certain destruction of all life in the universe. It’s a serious job. The woman, named Leeloo (an adorable Milla Jovovich) is a semi- divine but not invincible being who arrives on Earth damaged but is cloned back to health. Ian Holm plays a nervous priest who wants to help Leeloo, while villain Gary Oldman — with a grotesque half-shaved hairstyle and a bizarre Southern accent — wants to destroy her.” –San Francisco Chronicle

Part of the series Waverly Midnights: The Future is Female

 

• Country USA
• Year 1997
• Running Time 127 minutes
• Director Luc Besson

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.