THE 5th ELEMENT

Priest: Will the elements be gone now forever from this place?
Kommander: When mankind comes to its senses, we will return.
Priest: Knowing mankind as I do, that could take centuries!
Kommander: Time is of no importance, only life is important.

Zorg: ...It's light... the handle's adjustable for easy carrying... good for righties and lefties. ... Breaks down into four parts, undetectable by X-rays.. It's the ideal weapon for quick, discreet interventions. A word on fire power: Titanium recharger. 3000 round clip with bursts of 3 to 300. With the replay button, another Zorg innovation, it's even easier... one shot... and replay sends every following shot to the same location... I recharge, but the enemy has launched a cowardly sneak attack from behind, the automirror takes care of that. Gives me the time to turn around and finish the job. 300 round bursts, then there are the Zorg oldies... Rocket launcher. The always efficient flame thrower... My favorite. Our famous net launcher, the arrow launcher, with exploding or poisonous gas heads - very practical. And for the grand finale, the all-new ice-cube system!

ONE VIEW
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It wouldn't seem likely that a science fiction movie could combine grim, end-of-the-world drama with campy, corny, over-the-top humor.
Yet that's what happens in The Fifth Element, from French director Luc Besson, who also co-wrote the script with Robert Mark Kamen.
The story centers on a once-every-5,000-years showdown with Evil, which in this case looks like a seething lava ball aiming to wipe out all life on Earth. Some kindly aliens send Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) a ''supreme being'' (not The Supreme Being) to trigger a magical beam of protective light.
The Fifth Element
(PG-13; intense sci-fi violence, some sexuality, brief nudity)
Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich.
Directed by Luc Besson.
127 minutes.
National Amusements, Danbarry Middletown, Showplace 8.

A mass of complexities precede the main action, which gets under way when Leeloo literally drops into the air-taxi driven by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). He's an ex-commando who becomes Leeloo's protector during the hunt for magic stones needed for the beam-of-light trick.
Their allies include Cornelius (Ian Holm), a priest who holds the literal key to salvation, an alien opera singer (Maiwenn Le Besco) and a frenetic, sexually ambiguous DJ named Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker).
The bad guys include a vile industrialist named Zorg (Gary Oldman) and a race of brutal shape-shifting aliens who end up providing much of the unexpected comedy.
The action, which includes a trip to a resort planet, is outlandish in the extreme, overblown and packed with corny jokes. So are the dialogue, special effects, scenery and costumes (by Jean-Paul Gaultier).
Fifth Element doesn't reach the level of great sci-fi to which it clearly aspires because it has too many characters doing too many things for too few reasons.
Still, it's a lot of fun. Mr. Besson makes the excesses work by overlaying the life-and-death conflict with heavy layers of wild, irreverent humor and slapstick.
It's a tricky combination, but somehow it flies.