'Fifth Element' back on the big screen for its 20th anniversary
May 9, 1997: I was working for Suncoast Motion Picture Company at Mount Prospect's previous, dearly departed incarnation of Randhurst. Those were the days of the Picnic food court, the laser tag place with the "X-Files" pinball machine, and a parking lot that made sense. Our store was alongside the Carson Pirie Scott.
I wanted to see the 10 p.m. opening-night show of "The Fifth Element" at the mall's General Cinema, which meant I had an hour to count out the drawers, take the trash down to the compactor in the green and white bowels of the mall, lower and lock the gate, do my nightly double-take at the Darth Vader cardboard cutout staring out at me from the darkened store, and deposit the night's profits at the bank next to the theater.
I made it. And I loved the outlandish, imaginative movie by director Luc Besson, one that was sold in the ads as "the 'Star Wars' of the '90s" but which turned out to be a French sci-fi action comedy.
Twenty years later, "The Fifth Element" endures as one of my favorite films, and a reminder of how much fun it was to be a teenager working at a video store. (Remember those?)
This Sunday, May 14, the Bruce Willis vehicle returns to the big screen, with encore showings on Wednesday, May 17. The anniversary screenings, which include an introduction from Besson and a peek at his next sci-fi epic, "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," are being hosted by many theaters across the suburbs. See the full list and buy tickets at fathomevents.com.
If you have somehow never seen "The Fifth Element" despite its near-constant rotation on cable, it is a very funny, very colorful space adventure starring Milla Jovovich as an orange-haired alien who talks in gibberish when she's not saving the world from Gary Oldman and an evil force the size of a planet. Willis plays everyman hero Korben Dallas, who can perhaps best be described as Blond Bruce Willis.
The movie's most memorable scene intercuts a blue, tentacled opera diva singing an aria with Jovovich delivering a galactic beatdown to a bunch of dog-faced alien thugs. It's audacious and absurd, just like the rest of the movie.
"The Fifth Element" is available in every home format imaginable, but it begs to be seen on a large screen - grab your Multipass and head out to the multiplex.
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.