Evil … pure evil! (The Fifth Element (DVD))

Member Name: Brett Bligh

Product:	The Fifth Element (DVD)
Date:	15/07/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent quality anamorphic film transfer in correct aspect ratio, good quality 5.1 audio to match, nicely presented interactive menus.

Disadvantages: Selection of extras is adequate rather than excellent, the Making Of documentary is perhaps not ‘in depth’ enough, there is no audio commentary.

‘The Fifth Element’ is a colourful and flamboyantly presented film whose entire raison d’être, it seems, was to abandon the drab, utilitarian look of much modern science fiction and go back to the outrageous modernistic look popular at the genre’s inception, similarly abandoning any pretence at seriousness in an attempt to translate a comic book-style sci-fi spectacular to the big screen in an appealing way. With its crisp resolution and excellent colour reproduction, this is exactly the kind of film which could benefit most from a DVD release.


THE FILM
The Fifth Element is essentially an old-fashioned tale in which evil threatens the world and a hero steps forth to save it. At some point in the 23rd century, a huge ball of, apparently, pure evil, is approaching the planet Earth at considerable speed. The only way to stop this evil from destroying the world is to unite the four elements of the ancients (Earth, Wind, Fire and Water) with a Fifth Element, currently incarnated in the form of a beautiful but rather confused young woman named Leeloo.

Enter New York taxi driver Korben Dallas, who rescues Leeloo and attempts to avert the destruction of the Earth, all the while being hindered by the actions of the ruthless Zorg, apparently an art collector but actually an international gun smuggler and mercenary. But can he, as they say, save the Earth in time?


THE DISC

· Distributor: Pathé [P8920DVD].
Pathé were a DVD distribution company very early out of the gate when the format was launched in Region 2, and their releases are usually pretty good (although rarely truly excellent). Unfortunately, they were one of the last distributors to curb their prices to a more reasonable level, maintaining a standard retail price of £25 far after most other distributors had retreated from this position … when I bought this disc well over a year ago it cost me £22.99, but hopefully one can obtain much
cheaper copies by now.

· Rating: PG.
The Fifth Element does contain violence and elements of sex but these are all presented in a completely non-offensive manner and The Fifth Element is certainly a film suitable for a family audience. Hurrah to the BBFC for realising that.

· Region: 2 (PAL encoding).
This disc will play on any Region 2, multi-region or region-free DVD player which accepts PAL signals … if you bought your player in the UK then you’re probably fine.

· Type and case: DVD9 with clear Amaray keepcase.
DVD9s have two data layers embedded on the same side of the disc substrate, hence providing (nearly) twice the data capacity without necessitating disc flipping. This should not worry the average punter.

· Running time: feature 121 minutes approx.
This is essentially the theatrical release of the film — personally, I thought the running time could have done with being trimmed a bit, but this is hardly a fault of the disc!

· Picture format: 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.
The film is here presented in a lavish anamorphic transfer of the film in its original exhibition ratio of 2.35:1. Due to the combination of anamorphic transfer and PAL video standard one gets the best possible image on a widescreen (and, indeed, standard) TV. The colours are excellently reproduced, the standard yardsticks black and fleshtones being faultless and, perhaps more relevant in this case, the bright, intentionally gaudy colours of the film coming across as exactly that. There is no colour bleed and contrast is excellent. This is the best possible picture presentation that this film could possess on a TV screen, in my humble opinion.

· Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1.
The Fifth Element has a rather distinctive soundtrack, combining the modern and the more traditional to good effect, and the Dolby 5.1 track on this disc makes good use of this fact. The sound is excellently mixed to take account
of the various audio channels, and there is no background hiss or other obvious audio faults such as track transition faults.

· Subtitles: English for the Hard of Hearing.
Annoyingly, the disc defaults to subtitles on — WHY?

· Extras: Theatrical trailer, ‘Searching for the Fifth Element’ documentary, Cast & Crew biographies.

The theatrical trailer is an affair lasting just over 90 seconds presented in 1.85:1 (approx) letterbox widescreen. It essentially features a selection of clips from the film interspersed with credits on a black screen and without narration. To be honest, the quality is a bit crummy, with colour bleed particularly noticeable and poor contrast … looks like a transfer taken from somebody’s old VHS copy, to me.

Searching for the Fifth Element is a 22-minute documentary made for HBO (an American cable channel) and obviously shown before the film was released. It is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio (with clips from the film in scope), and features interviews with Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich (what would she do without the word “like”?), Gary Oldman and Luc Besson, and mercifully brief sections with Chris Tucker (who is every bit as irritating in person, it seems, as when ‘in character’ in the film), all intermingled in MTV fashion. The documentary also finds time to look at both the music and the special effects, including the designs by European artists such as Moebius and Geraud, which are very interesting. The documentary has all the hallmarks of being churned off a production line along with about twenty others and is certainly not groundbreaking, but it certainly passes twenty odd minutes in an amicable fashion.

The Cast & Crew biographies consist of a number of static text screens accessed through a common menu and through which one proceeds by selecting a ‘next’ option in the usual way. Each consists of a very brief potted history of
the person concerned followed, in appropriate cases, by ‘Other film’ credits. Featured are actors Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman, whilst the crew are represented with biographies for director Luc Besson, costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and composer Eric Senna.

· Menus: the menus are animated, featuring scenes from the film accompanied by an appropriate soundtrack. Particularly notable is the main menu, which features the scene with the opera diva from the film with the menu options superimposed. A nice touch is the transition between the main menus and the sub-menus, with numbers appearing on the screen representing the four elements (3 is water, etc.). Apart from a slight reservation about the lengths of the animations, which are too short, causing the menu to repeat too often (and, on some DVD players, a transition pause), I would have to say that the menus on this DVD are impressive, both functional and aesthetically well designed.


CONCLUSION
In terms of presentation this DVD is faultless, with attractive animated menus leading to a film presented anamorphically in its original exhibition ratio and with full 5.1 sound. Where the disc starts to falter, however, is in its Extra features, which are merely average. The Making Of documentary, Searching for the Fifth Element, is not brilliant but okay as I discussed above, and it is always nice to see the theatrical trailer included, even if, as in this case, it is in a fairly poor condition, however given the huge enthusiasm for the project shown by the cast and crew in the documentary, I find it very strange that no-one thought it worth enticing them into doing an audio commentary, and that there are no huge stills galleries containing behind the scenes snapshots as well as reproductions of publicity materials. A DVD9 has ample capacity for this kind of thing, especially if the film is presented in only one language as here, so there really is not much excuse&
#8230;

As I stated before, Pathé DVDs are usually pretty good but rarely truly excellent, and this disc follows that trend, as a solid addition to any DVD fan’s collection but something that is hardly going to take pride of place within it. Grab it if the price is right!

Summary: