Hello, everybody out there in podcast land. This is Hold Up, the podcast where we dive deep into your childhood nostalgia, pull the movies from your past out, and find out if they held up.  Today I'm Hold Up with Kyle and Andrew. How's it going guys?  , energy  is somewhat on a non existent plane, so I'm gonna have to rely on you to carry me through it today.

Both of you. You don't get anything in this world, buddy. You gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get it done, otherwise I can't do anything. here and,  be stubborn,  it's people like you that make this country worse, you communist bastard. Ah, isn't that fun?  So Kyle,  what dog energy level are you sitting at today?

You know, like in the middle of the night when your dog like comes up to you in bed and  you're trying to sleep and all of a sudden you just feel hot, stink breath in it and you hear the, 

and then it gets the snot in your ear. That's  the energy. Like it's better. I don't think I like every experience. No, you'd never had the dog snot in your ear. Lucky man.  Speaking of dog snot, we're looking at the fifth element. Kyle,  this one's for you. This is  your baby right here.

I love, this is one of my favorite movies of my childhood. 

What can you tell us?  Lead the way,  this is your baby,  this is one that I, I remember getting as a VHS and . I believe we watched us as a family, or at least I know my mother watched it and she thought it was funny.

 I also watched it with my aunt a couple times. My aunt being  the giant movie lover. It's just a funny movie I wouldn't classify it as  anything remotely serious  it has a very well, let's just get this out of the way. It's a very French movie There's a lot of French things happening in this movie.

It's made by French people 

Great acts  not even saying a word just vowels  That's how Disney does French  Disney would know. Yeah.  Would they?  I actually have a childhood memory from this movie. I never saw it. Never saw it until recently. All the way through, anyway. This was one that my mom liked. 

And it would always come on TNT.  Always.  We would turn on TNT, there's the fifth element, mom's gonna watch it, and  then we move on. So I just always remember certain parts of it. I remember mainly  the taxi scene 

I remember the aliens. The bad aliens I should say I should specify. Yeah, never saw  the beginning which I think that's Sid Haig in it, isn't it? I believe so. Yeah, we'll get to that but I yeah, there's  a lot of different influences happening, especially in the beginning of this movie as a kid, did you feel like this was a really cool movie?

Yeah You I was like, this is cool as shit. They have flying cars, that's fucking awesome. Specifically, The weapons that the aliens, that he gave to the aliens, And didn't tell them about the red button, , I was like, that's fucking sick. That's so cool. , it's in your arm, and your arm is it.

Yeah, it was so imaginative. It, , as a kid, I remember, like I said, I never watched it all the way through, but I would stare at the TV when it came on. Yeah. Because what kid doesn't love aliens and big guns and,  crazy worlds with flying cars?  This was around the time that I had been introduced to a part of Blade Runner, and I didn't understand anything in that movie.

If you've ever seen Blade Runner, you know that's some pretty crazy stuff. Heady shit. That's tough for a kid to take in. It's for a kid to wrap around. It's a little dark. It's just a little too brooding. , very brooding and there's not like there's action, but  it's done Well, but not to the taste of a child.

, I don't think this is supposed to be towards a child But it has a more whimsical and it has it the action is very funky. It's funny. It's very 90s It's very 90s  like. It's very 90s.  I really enjoyed like the set design as a kid I didn't know that I what I was looking at was,  you just you're just in that world But like the set design  even the  CGI they did is still   it's aged, but it still holds up definitely we might have watched a remastered version But like it still looked pretty damn good.

I would say it's on scale with  alien Blade Runner Well, you know Blade Runner but like alien like especially aliens Yes, very much in that kind of I'd be better in some aspects I would say and I would definitely say like the one part that stood out to me , was the space opera because as a kid, I didn't appreciate views and I was a child and I just wanted to go have fun and do shit, but  when they open that up and it's just a planet behind them and it's just the way that they're like, they've set themselves up so that you just seen the window is the planet and everything below it is just like the darkness of space and to see this person come out and start singing one.

I don't remember what, it.  Opera that's from, , it's from a well known opera. And then they just, ,  launch into that. We'll talk about that later.

 Andrew, your childhood of fifth element, what do you remember? Non existent. Honestly, I don't remember. When you had mentioned this,  last week, I was like, oh, Fifth Element, and I looked it up, and I was like, oh, okay, Bruce Willis, , Gary Oldman, nothing, honestly, I went into this fresh, I went into this not having any expectations, and, , it's kind of fun, that one.

Yeah, that's a good viewing experience, when you can go in with , no expectations, probably low expectations, because every 90s movie, I feel like, we go in with , low expectations. Yeah. After, after what we just witnessed, we won't tell you, because, obviously, but Yeah.  Well, well, that was rough. You've had some rough ones.

 Bruce Willis has definitely had a few bad movies, but , Gary Oldman is usually not bad in anything he does, if I'm being honest. He's pretty, pretty stellar with every role that he has. So  I wouldn't say that I had low expectations. I wouldn't say they were sky high, but it was, you know What's the worst Bruce Willis movie?

What do you think? Shit. Is it the, Disney's The Kid?  Oh, the kid was pretty bad, man. That was pretty bad.  No, I was reading through,  some stuff. They,  I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but they had also inquired about Mel Gibson doing , the lead role here. ,  Willis was hesitant at the beginning, , because he had just been in two awful films, , Hudson Hawk and Billy Bathgate.

Don't think I ever saw those. Don't think I ever saw them either, and by don't think, I definitely didn't. Yeah. , but he was hesitant to take this role because he was afraid it could have been a flop, and he didn't want to further damage his reputation. Ah, I knew about the Mel Gibson thing, but that is super  Interesting.

I guess when you're an A list celebrity like that and you take a couple in the chin, you don't want to like spiral out of control. I would say Billy Bathgate and Hudson Hawk were probably dogshit movies, considering we've never really heard of them.  The kid's probably better than both of them combined. Oh god, we'll wait on that one. But Andrew, As your job on this show. Yeah, you want some factoids here? I want those big budget numbers. Those , juicy digits. Alright, let's see here. ,  Released on May 9th, 1997 to a domestic opening of right around 17 million. 

Budget was 90 million.  Domestically, it grossed 63, internationally 200 million, and then worldwide 263 million. So it did pretty damn good.  I think it was very popular over in  France and Germany . And for the people listening too,  it was released in the United States, but it is a French film.

The costume designers everyone that created for the art department that I mean the director Luc Besson Luc Besson Besson and he is obviously French He did a very famous film before this do you are you familiar with what it is? No, I'm not Leon the professional  That was his he wrote and directed that this  has a lot of tones of for sure I think Leon's a little bit more.

It's  much darker But there are definitely  some underlying,  themes and feelings throughout that. It's also some shots  I think your shot the lighting that's there.  It's interesting that this is a, an American movie made by French people that appealed to a worldwide audience  what is another big, big, big thing that people love, especially in the United States that is French made for Americans?

Les Mis? You can fuck yourself. Cirque du Soleil? Cirque du Soleil? Oh, yeah. It seemed like it did not hit home in the U. S. at the time. Which in the 90s,  I know international films always have done. Okay in the US, but  it wasn't like it was today.

It wasn't like pan's labyrinth It wasn't like because now you have parasite winning. Yeah awards there were a lot of things that were released right around that time in 1997  I will say this the movie that released That same month,  was The Lost World.

Oh, there we go. The same exact month. There we go.  You're also dealing with Men in Black and  Hercules at the time, like some heavy hitters. When was Titanic, was that 99 or was that 97?  That might have been 96. I don't think it ever happened.

You don't think so? No. Yeah. I think it's a cover up by the government. Fun little fact for . It did  very well in France, as you can imagine. It set box office records that were previously held by Independence Day the year before.

Yeah. It beat that. So I read a fact, too, that it said it was the most expensive, at the time, European made film.  That makes sense.  I mean there's a lot, there's a lot of practical effects going on in this movie as well. Like all those aliens that you see in there are real. That's animatronic,   and you can tell because it didn't hold up.

, what were  the hired hand aliens what were those things called? I don't even, I'm not even gonna. Those were elaborate costumes, weren't they? Very, very, very elaborate.  They're probably,  I don't know, maybe papier mâché. I wonder how much each one of those cost, and how many of those dudes were there.

I I don't know if you'd even quantify it like that, it'd be more like how many man hours did that take to make, and how much did you have to pay the people to make it. But then, you're putting money into those man hours, God, it would take it forever. A long, long time,  now getting older, I have respect for these kind of movies, because I've seen first hand, Just , on a C movie budget, and it being on set for a month, seeing practical effects done for  a zombie horror movie almost.

 That's insane. That's one thing. This would be a whole other level, especially in the 90s. especially French art,  which is high art. It's high art. Oh, it's high, baby. Don't diss it. , it's different for a reason. I don't want to say it's better, it's different for a reason.

And this movie Really doesn't a good job like showcasing that and yeah, the better parts of French culture  this movie it is European in the way that you watch it you see the things develop It is opposite of American culture, but It still has American feeling for sure.

 The American feeling comes from the American cast Yes,  and the president and military and involvement  I didn't know it was french, but I didn't feel that I didn't look anything up other than Knew what I saw when I was a kid  I knew the main actress was from Resident Evil. 

 That's all I knew. Going into it, when I looked it up and it was French, I was like, oh, that makes total sense. Makes total sense. It's just very much that,  it had Gary Oldman in it, for God's sakes. Like, how French can you get? With a parted combover. Yeah. All the way down the side of his face.

Yeah, I can't imagine  that getup he was wearing was uncomfortable whatsoever. I'm curious,  where was the inspiration for the dialect that he took on?  That was for sure Southern. That was for sure Southern, I don't know. His character's full name is Jean Baptiste. Jean Baptiste something Zorg.

Emmanuel Zorg. Yeah, Jean Baptiste. Emmanuel Zorg. Emmanuel Zorg. , I know that he hated his performance, too. Did you really? I did not know that. Gary Oldman said in an interview he regrets everything in that performance. The only reason he did the fifth element is he said he owed the director a favor because the director helped get his film, Kneel by Mouth, started.

 Do you feel that he should regret his performance? No, no, I don't think so either I thought he was one of the best parts of that movie  it fit in perfectly it is serious But it's also very whimsical stupid at times and that's not but think about what gary oldman does though How many very serious he's a very serious and  there's nothing wrong with that but also I think that a lot of actors they get pigeonholed into certain roles , to want to do other things at that point is like, well that's not part of my identity.

,  I'm not saying that he's said this or that he thinks this, I'm just saying. But he very well may think that. He may think that,  it's an amazing performance that's different, and  it's a breath of fresh air. Shows his versatility. Exactly, he's a villain who has, clearly has morals because of his actions that he makes.

He's not conniving he's very calculated but like he's imperfect he's human and he makes mistakes and he can tell He looks like a fucking buffoon.  He looks rather especially when you hear him talk and you get that Look,  it's a one two punch.  Speaking of morals like  I was digging in right before we start talking about the movie The main actress and, , Besson, right?

Am I saying it right? Besson. Besson. He had hired his wife  she is the blue alien that does the opera.  song and dance.  He really worked hard to get her approved by the studio.

They almost cut that scene in more ways than one. We'll talk about it soon,  he then struck up a relationship. You see where this is going? Yeah,  indeed do I. Tell me more. With Mila, who is the main character who plays Lilo. , he thought that she looked perfect for the role. When he saw her and that's how it always started  So they started a relationship on set Got the director a little a little divorce action When did that divorce occur?

 Do you know  him and mila Married  not too long after this and were married for a couple years. I'm gonna look at a couple years Yeah, just two years I think and then they got divorced. So imagine that You Yeah, not ending well weird how all those things come together.

I mean My win the divorce 97 and then he married mila 97. So like it had to have been like back to back. Yeah, he   I'm, pretty sure she was not happy  But I don't know well,  without further ado, I think we just, let's just dive right in. This is also Let's jump in, shall we? Let's just jump in.

 This also is gonna be one of those movies where we actually have Metaphors and theming to like work with like most of the stuff we see or have watched are things that are what's a storytelling? What's a metaphor? , we'll talk about that after .

If you're listening at home, Andrew is definitely not kidding. He doesn't know what a metaphor is. I don't. I want to know. , and we're not going to tell him because we don't have the time and the patience. , but jumping right in,  the movie's intro  captured my attention really fast.

That's where I thought Sid Haig was there.  He plays the high priest  that tries to kill, assassinate  the professor or whatever. But then he, I love that he tries to then convince them  that he is indeed altruistic. I am your friend. I am, look, put the gun down.

I am your friend. But you were gonna just fucking murder, I mean, who knows. It could have been some kind of ,  Sleepy sleepy help me out here. Why did he want him to die?  Because he knew too much He just knew too much. Okay. Yeah, the tomb was telling him in the Glyphics I don't know what they were I'll say how to go flicks sure went out for a black and better word and he was reading it and it looks like he'd Maybe read too much of this undiscovered tomb This test almost like in the mummy  when all the Magi are trying to protect the lesson for today  Kyle for the people back at home who haven't seen it.

Give us a  Synopsis of this film like if you were to describe this in an elevator pitch to someone back home 

basically, there's a lot more going on. There's a lot of things going on. A lot of themes.  Okay.  He buckled up. Alright, let's hear it, baby. Let's hear it. So we start the movie off by finding out a tidbit of information, which there is an evil that comes around every, what, 2, 000 years or so, and it's only mission is to destroy, and the only thing that can defeat it is the fifth element. 

Yeah, was it 300? It may have been 300, I thought it was 2, 000. Who the fuck knows? We all read it,  and we were like, 3, 000 years, God. Yeah, I think it's 300. it was 1904 or 08. 1914. 1914. Yeah, , I call bullshit on some aspects of this movie, then, if we're thinking about it in terms of hundreds. I mean, you've done it on every movie, you might as well call it bullshit.

Yeah, I don't think we would have the technology available to us to do half the shit they do in this movie. It just doesn't work out.  We find out that people have caught on, they've found this tomb, and there's archaeologists there.  Trying to decipher this hieroglyphic. A priest comes in, a quote unquote priest of who knows what denomination.

We don't know. You might as well just Roman Catholic, Catholic, the right religion. Well,  the only religion and there it is. We got to see you later, buddy. We're done.  Sorry. That's a religious guilt that's seeping out. Thank you.  They all meet up and he says, oh, I think they know too much.

 He pulls out a vial of some clear liquid and pours it in some cups. And then he goes, oh, congrats, congratulations on your discovery. Here's a cup. , I want to stop you there because the funniest part of that is the fact that he like he was about to drink it And then he was like, let's do a toast.

Yeah, so he talks himself out of assassinating. But now he gets mad He's like no, we can't drink water. We need alcohol or something. He like pours it out, which again, that's a  Just be patient just be patient and and that guy would have drank that water he would be dead Movie over, but he was right. We're asleep, but okay, so I'm making this a little bit long winded.

It's a aliens come in. Okay, they're there and  everybody freaks the fuck out Which  you would freak the fuck out if aliens came in in 1904? Yeah, yeah, who's one of these aliens look like they look they're giant  aardvark insects with that are wide as hell.

They look they're like brass. It's like general grievous meets like a penny I yeah, that's a pretty good description. I would say that they look more like philbert from rocko's modern life they definitely have that rocko's modern dwarven. It's like a dwarven centurion Okay, it's like a dwarven centurion from skyrim fucked an armadillo and that's what you got out of it,  And they don't really walk, they just waddle.

They just waddle side to side. There's  17 people in their car right now going, What the absolute fuck are they talking about? But then when you look it up though, you're gonna see it and you're gonna go, Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah! You guys are stupid. You're like, God damn it, I could have thought of so many other ways to describe that. 

 These aliens arrive and they're like,  They know too much. It's not safe here. The fifth element isn't safe. So they do some bullshit. They get this quote unquote  this rock comes out of something that they put a little key into. 

But then something happens. , the kid that's with them gets freaked out and starts shooting. Kills one of them., I think he killed one of them. I don't know. Knocked him over. And he gets up. Tries to make his way to this door that's closing this giant waddling penny armadillo fucker and he just can't quite get there He's like no.

No you have to here's the key And he just gets his hand closed and smashed and the guy grabs the key We fast forward to later 300 years later Thought it was 2000. It seems like it would make more sense to me if it was 2000  French people can't count  clearly  Really. Un, deux, trois.

We're there in the future, we open up, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, to a giant  black  hole looking thing. Or is it, do we open up to Bruce Willis? I think we get the black hole where they're The scientists are in the spaceship.

 They're in like some kind of futuristic battle cruiser of some kind. Speaking with the president. With the president, so it's a military force and they're surrounding this planet that looks like it's almost like a dying sun or something.  It's the evil force, isn't it?  The evil forest.

A force. 

 I thought you were saying forest   I don't know if there's a forest chase.  I'm not sure.  And I was waiting for you to tell me. Not in the year 2200.  Definitely not then.  Green space doesn't exist at that point.

We lit the last tree on fire as a joke.  We're doing that now.    The military's there talking to the president, what's he doing president,  it's getting bigger, what should we do, let's fire weapons at it, I don't know. Okay, I don't wanna stop your summary, but the president, did you notice him?

Did you recognize him? He was a former basketball player. No. Yeah, he was. I mean he might have been, but that's not, that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm getting at. He was! Okay, think of that face, think of those eyes. Mm hmm.  What other movie museum? He was in the dark night. Yeah. He was one of the gangsters.

He threw No, spoiler alert. He throws out , the bomb. Switch out the, and he goes, we're all gonna, that's what , he was  the inmate. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. , the prison guy who stepped out. But this is like great role.  What a role to have. Seriously. That's fucking awesome.  Back to your summary.

I just wanted to point that out before we forgot. Yeah. No, , 'cause I had seen that and I was like, that's, he was, he looks very recognizable. He's 6'5 former NBA player, so he's kind of intimidating, but he plays a president who's very Hands off. , but also emotional.

Yeah. And like, , I trust my generals, I don't really give a shit.  They make the decision to fire their weapons on , the planet and it sucks them up like a black hole and it gets bigger, they fire more, the general goes to one of The people  on the bridge and he goes, well, what do we have bigger than 207.

He's like nothing, sir.  Isn't that cute? So they don't have anything bigger to fire it just decides to consume them and it blows them up and then we get a little Fiery head that comes out of the flame. Very artistic choice that you know I think is there's a lot of like overtones. They're trying to say Set up the fact that this is the evil force that they've been mentioning comes back every 300 years They beat you over the head with that like a lot.

Yeah,  there's not a lot Of guesswork in this movie, which is appreciative and it's why it's also as a child I gravitated to I took it as That was the symbolism for death. Yes  because the death skull coming out in the fire , after the explosion happened, I thought it was a ,  to the audience way, none of this movie's realistic, spoiler alert to that one, but like, it's, it's, it's definitely something that  made it more artistic, and I understood as a kid, like, oh, this is bad now.

Yeah. This is not good. The dumb waddling aliens The one that lost his hand and his whole clan of groups are like we're coming to help out Because it seems it's that time of year the force is back and then you just get shot down immediately by the evil aliens And just crash land.

Yes  Then we get to the point where I think they pepper in Bruce Willis's introduction somewhere in there. , he's a taxi driver. . A bad one. A bad, very bad. He only has, what, like 13 points left on his license or something? Five. He had five. It was five. Like, how many points do they give you?

Like 500? Let's hope so. Because damn, that's a lot. That's unpaid parking tickets, and hitting pedestrians. It's just the basics.  We could have just avoided most of that.  We'll find out more about his history later, because that's not how he starts or ends life.

Well, I don't know how he ends his life. But, I promise you it's uh, Rrrrrrrr. Basically we're figuring out  they've recovered some of the armadillo penny aliens,  remains. And They've brought it back to  Earth and then they're gonna fabricate a being that was this a fragment from a friend from a hand of one of these armadillo penny aliens  Which is one of the parts I don't understand why they didn't just make another armadillo penny alien it's just a human but they construct a human and that's where Amelia which comes in and she is now  The alien who got shot down who recovered part of the hand of as a human  Are you paying attention yet?

 With what color hair? With orange color short dreadlocked hair because,  that makes sense. She's an alien. She was also wearing a wig. For those at home. Yes. It was a big ol wiggle. She was also speaking a maybe made up language.

Probably babble. I would say babble. That's where I wanted to stop right there. So that language she is speaking is made up. Good. I figured. There was a 400 word vocabulary that she had to learn. And she learned it with, , the director.  Which, I bet they learned it together. Yeah, I bet they learned it together.

But, Made some games out of it. They would read the language and write it and go back and forth on set until she memorized the language. So she actually memorized this.  Everybody who's sitting here, we're Star Wars people.

We like Star Wars, we love it. No. It's cool. Shut up, Andrew. Most of the languages in Star Wars, if not all of them, are completely just babble.   Give us one right now. I know you know a couple. I was trying to do Jabba the Hutt, but I realized I'd sound stupid if I tried, but, , when Anakin's talking to, , What's his face in the first one, in The Phantom Menace, the Doug,  he's like, Wayoni Dopot Slaymo.  What the fuck is that? That's from Lost Boys. Like, yeah. I remember him saying that. It's either Wayoni or Wayshoni Dopot Slaymo. , Slaymo, what the fuck is that? Poojoo? That must be poop. So it's made up. But, , the fact that they went in this movie and were like, we're gonna at least make a very   real language for this and  that to me is an extra step to this movie that makes me like it a lot more she  does such a great job because she memorizes that in her scenes when she's speaking it feels real It feels like a real language it's a very short kind of rhythmic language, so I thought it was like South African, to me it sounded like Eastern European mixed with  French or something, or Italian.

She's Ukrainian, so that would track. Yeah, that would make sense. It's, yeah, and also I was gonna say,  knowing multiple languages is a superpower.  It's very cool, and she's definitely somebody that knows, obviously, multiple languages. More than one.  That shines through in her performance, I think, as well.

And that's just one of those things  that's who you are. You bring that to the table when you do these roles, and that's why acting is important to bring a part of yourself to.  She nails this role, in my opinion. This is one of my favorite roles  she's ever done.

Because it has so much, it's very surface level shit, but it's much more deep than most of the other roles she's done. Nothing wrong with her career, it's good for her this is  a well rounded character that she has, that we get a lot of depth out of in the human emotion.  I think the next thing that happens to her is she,  what, she escapes?

She escapes. They make her, she's naked,  It's very naked. Director's choice. Director's choice. There's a lot of Upper body nudity , in this movie. , I bet you liked that as a kid, didn't you? I didn't.  No, because when I saw it, they had the, the censored versions of it.

Oh. So I didn't, you didn't see that, man.  What a shame for you. And your development. Yeah. What a telling part of your development. But, she escapes, and when she does escape.  She just jumps off a building that, and these buildings in New New York, I'm calling it New New York because it's New York, but like they've built the city up thousands of feet tall, all of it.

, she just like, eh, I'm going to fuck jump. She's an alien. She's a brand new alien. Brand new human alien. That doesn't know What's gonna hurt and what's gonna kill her?  She's like a little toddler. Yeah. I'm just gonna gotta learn do it  And so she falls how many stories you think she falls?

Oh easily five or six I was gonna say more than that. I was gonna say like 20 Yeah,  200 feet because  those buildings were tall tall as fuck and she there was no direct cap underneath her It was something like the foreground not the foreground but like the background I mean she wasn't hitting those  she falls directly on Bruce Willis cab.

Taxi, taxi. Rips a hole through it. And then we find out he's, you've got one point left on your license. Yeah, because someone jumped onto your taxi. That's not even his fault. No, it is his fault.  But, and I do want to take a brief sec, because I want to move us right along here., we talk about the New York setting,  they brought in a comic book illustrator to make these sets.  And design them and they used a combination of practical effects, CGI, and scale modeling. Wow. So they used everything, like how Star Wars used everything.

And I remember  me and Andrew were watching it, we were like, holy shit, this 1997? It looks better than a lot of movies and I'm not going to hark on the one company that I've been shitting on For a long time. I'm not gonna do it.  I'm not gonna do it  But it looks way better than anything they're producing now and  it was real Everything felt real  This makes sense why it was a 90 million dollar movie Yeah, and you when you see it, you'll understand what we're talking about, right?

You mentioned  the comic book writer that they brought on I should have mentioned this at the beginning But he Jean Giraud actually sued Luke Besson after the movie  it was for 13. 1 million euros for unfair competition 9 million euros and damages and interest Other stuff in regards to plagiarism, but it was dropped because Those allegations were made after he was hired by him.

Always gotta be angry about something. Someone's gotta get some money somewhere.  Bruce Willis,  Mila, are together now. What happens next, Kyle?  So then, these priests, one of whom is played by, is it Ian Holm?  Something. You know, he's in Andrew.

Probably. Is he in a Star Wars? He's in a lot of I don't know. He might be in a Star Wars. I doubt it. But he might be. I wouldn't surprise me. I think it's one of the only Oscar nominated horror movies of all time.

I should know this. I feel like I should know. You know who this is. He's in a very famous sci fi movie  we haven't watched yet, but we will be watching. You know who he is, right? Yes, that's what I'm saying.  Biddlebo. Yes. Biddlebo Backens. That's him. He is. Yes. That's him. I did not recognize. I just looked it up.

And that's not even the one I'm talking about. What's the one you're talking about? Older than that. He's been around. The Exorcist? No.  No, tell us I'm not gonna guess it alien. He's the Android and alien. Oh, no, he's he's the oh, yes Yes, that they don't know is an Android and that's one of the most terrifying parts.

Yes higher movie he was decent. He was the original sin Sym. Holy shit. He was, yes.   What a career for this dude. What a career. Yeah. 'cause those three movies right there alone. he's won Olivier Awards. BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards Academy.

 You know, he was a part of Andrew World, Shakespeare Company. Yeah. That tracks. Yeah. that's awesome.  He does such a good job.  He is . comedic relief, but also a story carrier. Like , he definitely drives the narrative along because he is relentless.

He's like, I need to do this or the world's gonna end and everybody else around him doesn't really have the pep in their fucking step. So he has to  drive the ship and he might be ineffective or overconfident in what he can do, but the people that he surrounds himself with Get the job done.

 That's one of the reasons why I thought that's an interesting choice to have somebody who's kind of like  he's funny. He's almost like a, I'm not trying to, lack of better words, like a little nerd.  He's like book, book nerd.

 He like languages, dummy.  He's definitely that guy, That makes me like him so much more now that , I know all that. Yeah. Yeah. He's a very storied actor and To have him in this movie is pretty, pretty, him, Gary Oldman. Yeah, it's a bunch of heavy hitters, 

Which brings me to one other thing I want to add in here very quickly is that this reminds me of like a Shakespearean comedy. It does, it totally does.  There's whimsy, there's action, there's adventure, there's love, there's stupidity.

 It's just a well rounded piece of,  it's nothing more than what it pretends to be. It can make you think, but not too hard. Yeah. And  that's one of the things I appreciate about this movie. Moving on to where  we  have this priest enter the narrative and the story.

He's trying to get to Mila Jovovich. He's trying to get to Lilu. He recognizes that she's the fifth element. He does.  Remember he's part of the government panel They bring him in to talk to the president at the beginning of the movie  they're like you're the priest of whatever order  and then they get shot down and look at his face He's like, oh fuck but then he had to have remains so he's not let in he finds out she escapes.

He tracks her down  she's with Bruce Willis what does he do to Bruce Willis? He kicks him out. Yes, right. Essentially. Yeah after he kisses her Yeah, we were all like, oh Yeah, here we go. It just met her just saved her and took her to the big red flag but   she woke up in the back of the taxi too and told bruce where to go  after Bruce Willis tries to kiss her  she says something comes come out You Something and he goes, hey, what does that mean to the priest? And the priest goes, , never without my permission. And he goes, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Cool, dude. I kissed her and she said, never without my permission. Hey, yep, makes sense. She was unconscious. I tried to  kiss her. My name's Corbin Dallas. It tracks. It tracks, bro. Corbin Dallas with nine points left on his taxi driver. I have one point left now. I'm gonna have to call my mom for a ride, bro. 

. Definitely written by not just a man, but a French man. A European man. A European. We ask for permission, not for forgiveness to your body. We find out that  Corbin Dallas, used to work for the military, and the military wants him to find the fifth element now that it's escaped, and they don't know that it's with the priest,  they go back And track them down. They say oh, you've won a trip to flauston paradise  his mom's calling him like why didn't you invite me to flauston paradise with you? I could which is me and andrew were like his mom sounds like she's 23. I pushed you out and this is the best you have for me.

Corbin dallas like Chill the fuck out  It's just a funny motherly figure to have  again, very Shakespearean thing,  not even  a scene character, just something funny. We get a little bit farther and they're trying to get to Flosston Paradise because that's where they're gonna apparently meet somebody.

I don't think we know that yet, but they're gonna meet somebody at Flosston Paradise.  The priest,  Tries to swap out. I don't know how he gets the information, but  he gets  his underling priest to go with Leloo to the booth  To flosston paradise to this cruise, which we don't it. We're like, oh they're going on a little boat.

Yeah, they did. Nah Nah,  probably not  also in the meantime too, we  get introduced to Gary Oldman's character, which we mentioned. He's got his side story where he's like this arms dealer,  and he's working for the evil force basically. And the evil force calls him on the phone. Yeah, pretty tight.

 Not only are they looking for the fifth element, they're looking for the stones because you need the stones and the fifth element to propel away the force.  Basically Gary Oldman's characters in search for the stones because they already have the fifth element So they're like, oh you can have the fifth element, but she's worthless without the stones Yep So I can you can see why Gary Oldman was like I don't like this cuz  he's part of the plot But he's very just we need this.

We need you to do this. Yeah, he's basically a henchman exactly But like he's a very well acted henchman and  he's sending his underlings to try to basically They're just trying to get a hold of Leloo And whoever has lelu has the fifth element, but they don't really know that they don't the zorg Gary oldman's character doesn't necessarily know that he just knows he's looking for stones.

Long story short they all end up through some,  farce or another on this very much a farce It's very much a it's very funny. It's a very oh, well this person didn't make it on because they were dumb  they all figure out a way to get in there The priest  climbs into the landing gear , Corbin Dallas, ,  the government rigs it so that he's won this trip to Foston, Paris, he just shows up with Lelou as his plus one, and then they all  get on this,   they get on like a shuttle, which I thought that was the cruise when I was a kid, I was like, that's a shitty cruise, it's just like In  a little tin mouse box.

 It was like a plane To their cruise location and I didn't know that they were going to location as a kid and I was like,  that sucks So that when they got there, I was  confused. They're not going to a like a ship It is like an actual  it's a spaceship that looks like a cruise ship in a sense  I was like, oh, that's wow That's pretty cool so I guess they make trips between the planet's surface and  up in the atmosphere here , long story short, they're all in this cruise ship, for lack of a better term, and   we all kind of start seeing why they want certain things, or who's meeting who.

Leeloo knows that she's meeting somebody. Someone to get the stones. To get the stones, so that they, she can keep them safe. We know that Gary Oldman's character's on his way as well, to get the stones. We know the priest is gonna get the stones, and we know that Corbin Dallas is there for her. Leloo, because he is just, he's like, Ow.

He's basically her protector, but a horny protector. A horny protector. You also get like a little inkling of Leloo, because he goes, , I'm here to protect you, and she goes, no, I'm, I protect you. I'm the fifth element. , and so then, I think that's the first time we really  see that, , she's definitely the fifth element.

  You know, a living creature.  This is where the big opera  Songtress comes out and just absolutely tears it up, destroys our hearts, like crushes her on scene performance. And I would love to know if she actually sang that or not.

Yeah. I would love to. I will tell you this. I remember skimming through this and reading it, whoever wrote that  gave it to,  her or whoever was singing, and they laughed and said, huh, these notes are. Humanly impossible. Yeah, no that , some of the notes that she sings in there and the way that she sings it like going up and down and up and down and up and down like that and like  from like a register that you wouldn't be able to sing as a soprano   is physically impossible.

Yeah, there's no way you can ever do that, right? That was said multiple times to the person that wrote the opera. So  Yeah, she kills it. She fucking murders it literally and then gets murdered and then does get indeed shot   I don't think they meant to shoot her. They're just shooting and she got shot  essentially what happens is there's a miscommunication between Gary Oldman's character  and the henchmen So he's a henchman and he has hired other henchmen who are now revolting on him to a certain degree because he doesn't want to pay them And they their henchmen money.

 He doesn't want to give him insurance  We're not giving you health insurance you can get Cobra  They were like we wanted united or we're out  We want the shittiest so  wasn't sung by my way. I didn't think it was   Inva Mulekako? Let me see.  I don't think cock is in that. The opera performance was amazing in and of itself  with the Planet in the background and it's all it's really beautiful and they use the opera  to crescendo the action, too So  it's building and building and building and then that's when it felt like at the movie all  the paths Verge together and you have the henchmen coming after , Gary Oldman's character, you have the priest going after the stones, and the fifth element being protected by Bruce Willis.

Chris Tucker. We've lost Chris Tucker. Oh my god. One of the best parts of this entire movie. And Chris Tucker, , for those that don't know, plays this very androgynous character. It is.

Who's this radio host that's there to talk to the contestant winner, Bruce Willis. And he goes a mile a minute, like he just did  16 lines of blow in the back. Exactly. , if he wasn't on cocaine during this, then he deserves a bigger recognition. He had to have been. He had to The way that he was taught, I mean, he was just. 

I laughed out loud several times when I watched this It's so funny. It is very it is a very androgynous character as I said very sexual sexual Hypersexual and they wrote it for Prince. I was gonna say was this based on Prince? This is had to have been based on they didn't base it on Prince.

They wanted it to be. They wrote it for Prince They wanted it to be him and Prince couldn't do it I'm sure he couldn't Prince is great one of the greatest musicians of all time But like the level of energy that Chris Tucker brought I think he had like a scheduling conflict or something thinking about Prince doing that instead of Chris Tucker doesn't make sense Like yeah, that's his aura, but  it wouldn't have been as tough I don't think, judging off the other comedy in this movie, this kind of really solidifies it as  there's funny aspects to this.

I will say I had a tough time understanding what Chris Tucker was saying half the time. I did as well.  Yeah, part of it was,  we watched it together, the subtitles were off and it was just hard to hear everything. Plus he's like yelling into a microphone, so you get the echo too, on top of it.  I was telling Kyle the funniest thing I heard , about this movie ,  Bruce Willis looked at him right before they were about to roll and said, you know this could ruin your career, right?

And Chris Tucker was like, it snapped him back into reality. And he was like, wait, what? It was like, um, um, and then right at that point the director yelled action and Chris Tucker was like, well, I'm fucking in it now. Let's go. Commit, baby. Was this before Rush Hour? That's what I asked. I thought it was before Rush Hour.

 Rush Hour is 98. This was before.

This was before Rush Hour.  That's one of the best comedies of all time. One of the best. One that we could review. Definitely one we'll get to. It would hold up, but.  The next scene we have is  the basically the explosion Of the entire cruise ship at this point.

There's some lot there's some kind of weird like Again, farcical nature to this was like, you know I come in this door and I come out that door and I miss the people that I was looking for by just that much Or  they look like a little different and I couldn't see them this time and oh darn it Very three stooges very three stooges And basically zork gets blown the fuck up because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time You He goes to look for the stones, , the stones are gone, they have the stones, and they're on their way back to Earth, and he's just, he planted a bomb, and he turned the bomb off, but then the aliens that he fucked over, they planted a bomb on him, and he gets blown up, and he goes, oh.

Isn't that what he said, or did he say something else?  If I'm being honest, I don't remember. He , his death was funny. That is the, at the time, the most expensive indoor explosion  in a film ever created.

And probably after that, I would imagine, because after that, they probably started doing CGI. Yeah. That was a very expensive scene. , this whole scene, I think this whole scene, this whole hallway scene from, The start of Chris Tucker, the opera, down to the explosion, almost got lost to time. 

 This film, as they were transporting it, the container that contained this scene, all the film reels,  got knocked off the airplane and run over by a forklift. Well, that fucking blows. I bet they were great. They said that they had enough usable footage. I think it's primarily the opera scene that they almost lost, but think about the fifth element right now without that scene. 

Yeah, it wouldn't be as good. Yeah, I would not have liked it as much. With the explosion of the actual set, you can't just go back and reshoot that shit.  Again, this kind of brings us to why storytelling 20 years ago is different than now because  You can just green screen it you can just go back and  fix it in post What if you can't go fix it in post?

 I know it's not if your film reel falls off like a small Cessna  Cliff runs over a dinky ass little forklift driven by a guy named Paul who may or may not have had some Absolutely did he had a little rattler And he got a little too spicy. A rattler. A rattler? 

I was thinking bush heavy or something. Bush heavy.  So we're back on earth. I guess so.  This movie clips along. It's very easy to watch because there's always something happening. Not in one place for too long.   We're on Earth now, we made it back to Egypt, they went wherever that tomb was in the UK, I think it was Egypt, so they're back in Egypt  we have Corbin Dallas, Leeloo, the priest, and,  What's his name?

His assistant's characters do and Chris Tucker for some reason. Yes. And the assistant. Sorry, , there's five people now that are all together and they have all the stones. They activate all the stones. , but Lila's not doing too good because she got all banged up in the, , She got shot.

She got shot. She got fucking shot in like the gut. During the action sequence on this ship, she, there was a lot going on. She was in the vent, wasn't she? Yeah. She was diehard. Yeah. She was diehard, which is funny because Woosbrillis was in this too. Yeah. I think it's pronounced Wee Lahs. Wee Lahs. Wee Lahs. 

In Burroughs.  That has to be said as such.  She is dying. She's received a mortal wound. She's not doing great.  Then Corbin picks her up and goes, Lilo, Lilo, Lilo. I love you. I love you. Oh, love you. I've loved you for all of this 48 hours. I've never stopped once I just want you to know that I I love you and your love.

I don't who knows what it's definitely  The actions of a man who's talking out of his pants. Yes, who has don't die. If you do die, it'll be okay I'll figure it out  I'll be over in 24 hours. I'll find another sexy lady to fall on my taxi  It happens more often than you think.  Nine points.  , and essentially she, Wakes up long enough.

I think do they kiss and then yeah, all of a sudden she Explains the lights shoot from all the other stones into her and they converge on her and she opens her mouth and this light comes Up and  the shadow planet that's charging towards earth It's actually through the atmosphere is point which I don't know too much about a lot of that kind of stuff But I'm pretty sure that'd be bad.

I don't love you'd be able to come back from that. No Everyone is dead. Yeah, I feel like the gravity from that'll never be earthquake quake All sorts of shit.  We went from five elements to zero. To zero. Real fast. There'd be some sort of seismic wave created by something that large coming through the atmosphere somehow, some way.

, think of what we're talking about right now and how we get with movies about, Well that wasn't, well fuck that, that wasn't real. , that's really the only time been like, that wasn't real. I didn't say bullshit any question at all It's like yeah this works in that world because it's a different world and they did a good enough job differentiating it from our world in the way that they designed this entire movie, so  Essentially she looks up towards the heavens light gets out of her mouth It goes to this temple and it goes up into the shadow planet and it just this you're in into it's you know back to that point it works for this world because  They do a good job of establishing what this world is, and it's not frustrating.

It's like, okay, that wouldn't happen, but that was fun. Batman and Robin just completely break the rules over and over and over and over again with nonsensical bullshit that,  okay, I get it. It's a comic book movie. I should suspend disbelief, but it's not a comic book. Yeah, but I shouldn't have to suspend my disbelief to the point of zero.

I'm trying to live in this world. and you couldn't live in that world. You can live in this one. Mm-Hmm. .  Then we get a sex scene  right at the very end to end things in a blue light. They're like blue, like they're sex Where're, Dallas and Lilo. Oh. I wouldn't go in there right now if I, so they're like, oh, oh, they're having  sex in this MRI machine.

Right. , yeah. It's essentially what it is.  And that's the end of it. That's the fifth element.   I don't know what I was expecting,  you know, especially with the sex scene at the end. But I do remember the sex scene. I remember seeing that on TV when I was a kid. Yeah. I want to know, Andrew, since you've never seen it, I want to know what you, what your thoughts are on it as an adult.

 I  went into it, like I said, I wasn't expecting much. I was expecting it actually to be a decent film just because of the people that were in it.  You look at it like Rotten Tomatoes or whatever, like it's,  it's solid. , it was definitely stupid in ways, and I hated the Damsel in Distress theme, and,  some of that stuff was a little too cheesy, but for what it was, , it was fairly entertaining, in my opinion.

 I didn't, get up from that couch like well, that was a waste of fucking time like It was solid. It was a good b plus movie.  I don't have many negative things to say and trust me We've gotten up from the couch and said that's a fucking waste of time many times There wasn't always time I the thing that I would have liked the subtitles to been correct , they were delayed or they were, they actually, I think they were,  ahead of what they were speaking.

 That's Amazon's fault. Yeah, that's Amazon's fault.  I would like to actually go back and watch it so I can hear and figure out what the fuck Chris Tucker said. And, there's plenty of other shit that I missed, but  I liked it. I did, Kyle, I know this is , one of your favorites.

I think for me,  I love the world building. I thought there was some pretty solid performances even with the cast being crazy. Yeah, like it was all over the place and I do tend to love those It created that star wars like kookiness,  because people in general are kooky you have all kinds of weird different personalities out there So it's not that far fetched to have weirdos in this movie and it just worked with the environment.

So I like that I  Wish that it went a little deeper than it did.  I, cause I know at the end of it, she's the fifth element. She represents love, right?  The shadow planet is death. The fifth element is love. In order to defeat death, you must love. Right.  He didn't love her, he lusted after her, 

but again, this is the, we got this from a Frenchman's point of view.  ,  if I didn't love my woman physically, would I ever love her?  This is definitely not a feminist movie at all.  In any way, shape, Bechdel test. Not at all. No. it is a 90s made movie by a French man, so take that with what you will.

 Andrew mentioned the Bechdel test, Gretchen loves mentioning the Bechdel test. Oh yeah, she does. Does it pass the Bechdel test. Let me, let me pull it up. I have it here.  We're going to, I'm going to ask these three questions. Yeah, I'm gonna ask these three questions and we'll decide and we can do this on all 90s movies, but I have a feeling It's gonna be the same answer for all of them.

Same answer. Yeah. Um, I'll bring it up when we get close to one that may actually pass.  Do we have two characters that aren't shown to be just sex symbols?

No, no. Okay. So we don't have that. Do we have two women engaging in a  conversation? No. Okay. If they do have a conversation, is it about men?  No. There wasn't a conversation to be had, to answer your question a little bit deeper, to play devil's advocate, when Chris Tucker was making love to his flight attendant friend, when she mentioned him, oh, yeah, but like.

Making love is an interesting choice there,  that was, that was. He was getting in it. Yeah, she was, but at first he just basically sexually assaulted her. Went down on her immediately. Overall,  a lot of it does, , stand the test of time in how they created this world.

, I love the performances. I love the environment. ,  being a Star Wars fan, this just fit right in with the Star Wars. If you're a Star Wars fan, I really do think that you would enjoy this movie. Just as an enjoyment movie. It's just fun. It's a fun movie. Andrew, do you want to see, before we get into our ratings, do you want to look up and see what Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB gave it?

I have IMDBs. Okay, cool. I never look at Rotten Tomatoes.  I for one am going to say, yeah, definitely held up for the most part to me. You still have to look at this movie through the lens of this is a movie from the 90s. If you don't like movies from the 90s, you might not like this one In fact, this is a little bit more of a 90s pop culture.

I feel like then than any of the ones we've watched so far  Just because of the way they try to futurize everything and make  this is how it would be in the future If we did this with her little nail thing that did her nails in the flying cars But  if you do like 90s movies  Yeah.

What are we rating in here? We'll let you go last. I'm gonna say like 6. 8. 6. 8? Damn, that low. 6. 8, that's a solid movie for me. If we're saying 5 is halfway. 10 is pretty solid. Yeah, that's not bad. It means you liked it.

Probably wouldn't see it again, probably. No, I would. There's plenty of comedies that I would probably put at like 6. 8, stuff like that. Yeah.  I would say 7. 6. I thought it was really solid.  I think  my biggest detractor from it is  you went a little deep and you had something good going and you didn't finish it off.

 When your main character is,  a female character, let's write her a little bit better, but that's, and even in that time she was.  We got the one action scene from her where she beats everyone's ass, but then she gets hurt and she needs Bruce. And then she needs Bruce.

 A male character to come through and save her life, even though she  is the fifth element. She's an extraterrestrial being that's smarter and can comprehend more than any human combined. Other than that, 7. 6 for me. It flew by, it was over two hours, but I didn't feel any bit of it.

No, it definitely did not, it did not drag on. And all what would you give it? I'll give it like a 7. 8 7. 9. Okay, 7. 85 I will say if I were to watch this again, and I would be able to catch all the dialogue And I wasn't high it might be higher, but I was all three of those things I missed a lot, but I still don't know maybe if you're not as high  it suffers a little bit, 

I feel like you need to have some stream of consciousness during this movie, because  it's definitely punching above its weight for what it is, I think. I was aware,  when you get to that level, sometimes you miss things. Yeah, you just do so what does IMDB say?

7. 5.  And I gave it a 7. 6 Oh, aren't you smart?  Mean I saw it beforehand I still gave it a 6. 8. So eat me. So to wrap this up everyone Do we think the fifth element holds up? Yes There you have it. The fifth element holds up, and , as always, we just reached into your childhood nostalgia.

We pulled out the fifth element from your memory bank, and we decided it does hold up. So we're gonna put it back in your memory bank. I'm not gonna wipe it. We're gonna keep it clean. Yeah, we'll let you stay. We'll let you hang on to it.  Be safe having sex in MRI machines if that is your thing , enjoy the fifth element if you haven't seen it if you haven't seen it in a long time I we recommend you go back and watch it.

We'll catch you next time