 Remastered Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman star in acclaimed director Luc Besson's outrageous sci-fi adventure, an extravagantly styled tale of good against evil set in an unbelievable twenty-third century world. Storyline: In the twenty-third century, the universe is threatened by evil. The only hope for mankind is the Fifth Element, who comes to Earth every five thousand years to protect the humans with four stones of the four elements: fire, water, Earth and air. A Mondoshawan spacecraft is bringing The Fifth Element back to Earth but it is destroyed by the evil Mangalores. However, a team of scientists use the DNA of the remains of the Fifth Element to rebuild the perfect being called Leeloo. She escapes from the laboratory and stumbles upon the taxi driver and former elite commando Major Korben Dallas that helps her to escape from the police. Leeloo tells him that she must meet Father Vito Cornelius to accomplish her mission. Meanwhile, the Evil uses the greedy and cruel Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg and a team of mercenary Mangalores to retrieve the stones and avoid the protection of Leeloo. But the skilled Korben Dallas has fallen in love with Leeloo and decides to help her to retrieve the stones. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Ben Williams, August 5, 2007 Let's set the way-back machine to roughly one year ago, shall we? The fledgling Blu-ray format was enduring a very rocky start; the first Blu-ray player to hit the market was rife with problems and the initial batch of Blu-ray software was less than impressive. One title in particular was the target of the majority of the vitriolic disgust aimed at these lackluster releases: The Fifth Element. This flawed Blu-ray release was wrought with problems that ranged from poor source material, to numerous compression and encoding issues. Here we are a year later, and Sony has corrected these mistakes and re-released the title with a new whiz-bang transfer while offering a free upgrade program for all owners of the previous problematic version. Is this updated release a big enough improvement to erase the bad taste left by the first release? In a word, absolutely. For those of you not familiar with the film itself, The Fifth Element is a bizarre, singular science fiction film that was the life-long pet project of filmmaker Luc Bessson. Besson's hero is Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a former soldier who is reluctantly recruited into a half-baked attempt at protecting the Earth from an alien attack while kicking ass and taking names along the way. On the edge of our solar system, a mysterious entity has joined forces with the evil Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman), a corrupt industrialist who sounds eerily like Ross Perot, in a plot to destroy the planet. Only the mysterious Fifth Element can save the Earth from impending doom. Dallas will have to team up with an eccentric cast of characters including Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), a nonsense-talking runaway with a secretive past, and Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker), an effeminate, hyperactive, intergalactic talk-show host who never shuts up. The Fifth Element is seriously strange, but it is also an extremely enjoyable science fiction flick. Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod, either the funniest sidekick in science fiction history or the most annoying, prances around shrieking like a stuck pig for the majority of the film. He dresses like a figure skater, has hair shaped like a tube sticking out of his forehead and wears more Lipstick than J.Lo; thus ensuring that he remains one of the more normal characters in the film. Don't get me started on the strange collection of oddities present in the film's stunning opera house scene that takes place on an intergalactic cruise ship. This was also Milla Jovovich's breakout role; she proves to be a capable and inventive actress. It's a shame that she hasn't built on her fantastic performance in The Fifth Element and parlayed that into roles that have played to her considerable talents, rather than being content with roles in video game adaptations. Oh well, at the very least, The Fifth Element stands as a remarkable achievement in imaginative filmmaking; unafraid of simply being blissfully fun. The Fifth Element has long been a disappointment for Blu-ray supporters. What should have been a showcase title for the format had somehow found its way to the format with a second rate transfer. Fortunately, this has now been remedied and The Fifth Element can safely take its place amongst the best titles available on the Blu-ray format. The new video re-master is nothing short of exceptional as all the wrongs of the previous version have been righted. On the audio side, we are again treated to the wonders of uncompressed PCM sound. Dolby's's current experiment with TrueHD hasn't quite matched the power and grace of PCM, but it will be interesting to see how this might change in the future. All in all, this newly remastered version of The Fifth Element is a must own! Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Ben Williams, August 5, 2007 Let's set the way-back machine to roughly one year ago, shall we? The fledgling Blu-ray format was enduring a very rocky start; the first Blu-ray player to hit the market was rife with problems and the initial batch of Blu-ray software was less than impressive. One title in particular was the target of the majority of the vitriolic disgust aimed at these lackluster releases: The Fifth Element. This flawed Blu-ray release was wrought with problems that ranged from poor source material, to numerous compression and encoding issues. Here we are a year later, and Sony has corrected these mistakes and re-released the title with a new whiz-bang transfer while offering a free upgrade program for all owners of the previous problematic version. Is this updated release a big enough improvement to erase the bad taste left by the first release? In a word, absolutely. For those of you not familiar with the film itself, The Fifth Element is a bizarre, singular science fiction film that was the life-long pet project of filmmaker Luc Bessson. Besson's hero is Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a former soldier who is reluctantly recruited into a half-baked attempt at protecting the Earth from an alien attack while kicking ass and taking names along the way. On the edge of our solar system, a mysterious entity has joined forces with the evil Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman), a corrupt industrialist who sounds eerily like Ross Perot, in a plot to destroy the planet. Only the mysterious Fifth Element can save the Earth from impending doom. Dallas will have to team up with an eccentric cast of characters including Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), a nonsense-talking runaway with a secretive past, and Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker), an effeminate, hyperactive, intergalactic talk-show host who never shuts up. The Fifth Element is seriously strange, but it is also an extremely enjoyable science fiction flick. Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod, either the funniest sidekick in science fiction history or the most annoying, prances around shrieking like a stuck pig for the majority of the film. He dresses like a figure skater, has hair shaped like a tube sticking out of his forehead and wears more Lipstick than J.Lo; thus ensuring that he remains one of the more normal characters in the film. Don't get me started on the strange collection of oddities present in the film's stunning opera house scene that takes place on an intergalactic cruise ship. This was also Milla Jovovich's breakout role; she proves to be a capable and inventive actress. It's a shame that she hasn't built on her fantastic performance in The Fifth Element and parlayed that into roles that have played to her considerable talents, rather than being content with roles in video game adaptations. Oh well, at the very least, The Fifth Element stands as a remarkable achievement in imaginative filmmaking; unafraid of simply being blissfully fun. The Fifth Element has long been a disappointment for Blu-ray supporters. What should have been a showcase title for the format had somehow found its way to the format with a second rate transfer. Fortunately, this has now been remedied and The Fifth Element can safely take its place amongst the best titles available on the Blu-ray format. The new video re-master is nothing short of exceptional as all the wrongs of the previous version have been righted. On the audio side, we are again treated to the wonders of uncompressed PCM sound. Dolby's's current experiment with TrueHD hasn't quite matched the power and grace of PCM, but it will be interesting to see how this might change in the future. All in all, this newly remastered version of The Fifth Element is a must own! Cast Notes: Bruce Willis (Korben Dallas), Gary Oldman (Zorg), Ian Holm (Priest Vito Conelius), Milla Jovovich (Leeloo), Chris Tucker (Ruby Rhod), Luke Perry (Billy), Brion James (General Munro), Tom 'Tiny' Lister Jr. (President Lindberg), Lee Evans [I] (Fog), Charlie Creed-Miles (David), Tricky (Right Arm), John Neville (General Staedert), John Bluthal (Professor Pacoli), Mathieu Kassovitz (Mugger), Christopher Fairbank (Mactilburgh). IMDb Rating (02/11/17): 7.7/10 from 355,832 users
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
