The Fifth Element (1997)

Director: Luc Besson                                    Writer: Luc Besson
Film Score: Eric Serra                                  Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast
Starring: Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm and Milla Jovovich

Another bit of craziness from the mind of Luc Besson. The Fifth Element, released the same year as Men In Black, is a similar story of aliens who want to destroy earth and, like Armageddon, it’s going to take Bruce Willis to stop them. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good film. In the first place it tries to do too many things at once, and in the second it doesn’t do any of them particularly well. Bruce Willis plays, what else, a sci-fi cab driver. In how many other films have we seen that before? When Milla Jovovich falls into his cab he begins to feel responsible and tries to help her find what she’s looking for. Yet another pretty standard cliché.

The whole thing really is a mess. Aliens from another world first land in 1919 and tell of a great evil that will return to Earth in three hundred years. The only thing that can save the planet is the fifth element. But the aliens don’t say exactly what that is. Flash forward a few centuries and the Earth is indeed threatened by a giant sphere of evil coming through space. The original aliens attempt to deliver the fifth element, but their ship is destroyed. With what remains, the Earth scientists are able to reconstruct a being from the genetic material and thus Mill Jovovich is recreated. She quickly escapes, however, and runs into Willis. When the president’s general calls on his top man, who happens to be Willis, to save the day, he does so for Jovovich’s sake.

Then there’s Gary Oldman as the super goofy arms dealer. Ian Holm plays the last in a long line of priests who guard the stones necessary to unlock the defensive temple. But of course Oldman has them. Or does he? Then there are gunfights with other aliens, an opera aria sung by a blue alien, and a time bomb set by Oldman that they have to diffuse before it destroys all of them. Is there any more that can be jammed in there? The film tries desperately for comedy, but never really achieves anything genuinely funny. There is also plenty of John McClane action from Willis, but it’s never really believable action. The sci-fi elements also suffer because that part of the film is never really taken that seriously. And don’t even get me started on Chris Tucker!

You know, the first Men in Black came out the same year as this film. And even though I’m not a big fan of the MIB franchise, I watched them and enjoyed them to a point. But those films are far superior to Besson’s. It’s a shame. I really love Besson and he’s become one of my favorite directors. It’s the single reason I watched the film, and I was extremely disappointed by how utterly unentertaining it was. I think I know what he was trying to achieve, and certainly it works for some people. But I need much more out of a film than goofy humor that isn’t that funny, a scantily clad heroine, and Bruce Willis. For me, The Fifth Element suffers conceptually and never really recovers. I had much greater expectations for Luc Besson here, but fortunately he has many more films that not only deliver, but make great cinema.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960--1993)

Director: Michael Curtiz, Stephen Sommers          Writer: James Lee, Stephen Sommers
Film Score: Jerome Moross, Bill Conte                 Cinematography: Ted McCord, Janusz Kaminski
Starring: Eddie Hodges, Archie Moore, Elijah Wood and Courtney B. Vance

There has yet to be a definitive version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for one simple reason: screenwriters just can’t leave well enough alone. Every time they try to “improve” the original work by changing it, they undermine the intention of the novel and thereby destroy the message that Twain was attempting to impart. In fact, I’m half convinced that screenwriters don’t even bother to read the novel and continue to make the same mistakes because they don’t know any better. Even the great Michael Curtiz, though he was saddled with a bad lead actor and a weak script, was unable to imbue his Huck Finn with anything like Twain’s intention. Stephen Sommers 1993 version, despite its better actors, is even worse. The biggest problem with both films is the complete misinterpretation of the character of Jim.

In Twain’s novel, Jim serves two purposes, to be the moral center of the book, not in words but in deeds, and that he be thoroughly a slave, adhering to all the stereotypes and not changing throughout the entire story. In this way it is incumbent upon Huck to do the changing, to realize for himself that what society has taught him about blacks is wrong. And he does this through spending time with Jim and eventually coming to realize that he is every bit as human as whites. What both films do to pervert this, in a gesture of political correctness I’m sure, is to make Jim the “smart” one, who both manipulates Huck--thereby losing his moral superiority--and by teaching him--thus destroying Huck’s ability to learn for himself through experience. It’s maddening to watch and it’s doubtful we’ll ever see a film that’s faithful to the novel because people just don’t understand what Twain was doing. This shouldn't be surprising, however, considering it took critics over fifty years before they realized the book was more than just a sequel to the children’s book Tom Sawyer. The reality is, Huck Finn is very much for adults because of its commentary on race in America.

The 1960 version suffers the most from poor acting by its two principals. Eddie Hodges has just the right look, with the red hair and big white teeth, but has a difficult time attenuating his facial and vocal expressions to give him any kind of emotional range. Boxer Archie Moore as Jim has a similar problem. The novel has three distinct sections, before the trip, during the trip, and after the trip downriver. Screenwriter James Lee apparently put the book in a blender and pulled out pages at random because characters from all over the book show up at any time. This, of course, destroys the episodic nature of the piece and deprives it of any sense of real storytelling. Apparently the feeling is, when approaching this piece, is that it can be treated as a series of interchangeable gags. It’s too bad, because the possibility for a dramatic treatment on film is so desperately needed. The appearance by Buster Keaton is great but again, it has nothing to do with the book. And the ending is completely ruined with Jim confessing his sins to Huck and never acquiring the free status he should have.

The 1993 Disney version of the film by Stephen Sommers has the opposite problem. The actors are all very good, including Wood and Vance who make a fantastic Huck and Jim. And while the script sticks to the basic structure of the novel, it does leave out the last section with Tom Sawyer. This version is also improved by the use of voice-over for Huck, replicating the first-person viewpoint of the novel. Where this version really takes a dive is the complete undermining of Jim, making him a master manipulator, using Huck to help him, lying to him to get what he wants, and making him, ironically, more unlikeable it trying to change him to be politically acceptable. Sommers also makes the poor choice of using a slave plantation to show Huck the evils of slavery rather than letting him learn on his own. Jim tries to atone for his sins at the end, but the utterly unbelievable conclusion in which they just let him go makes it even worse. Ultimately, both versions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have their entertaining moments, but they are nowhere near Twain’s vision and purpose and can only be a let down for fans of the novel.