The Bruce Willis Movie That Deserves More Love: A Sci-Fi Comedy Gem
The Fifth Element is often considered to be one of the lows in Bruce Willis' career.
It was a moderate commercial success, with a box office $263.9 million on a budget of $90 million, and critics were quite divided in their reaction on it – while the majority of reviews were generally positive, it also got a number of scathing reactions and nominations to various anti-awards for bad movies.
Its space fantasy nature clearly rubbed a number of people the wrong way.
However, as it appears, over time The Fifth Element became as close to a cult classic, as a high-budget blockbuster can be. While it did not spawn a franchise, it still has quite a number of devoted fans.
Case in point, recently it was voted as one of the most favorite movies starring Bruce Willis by Redditors, when they had a thread dedicated to remembering Bruce's career, in the light of recent bad news about his health.
Compliments to The Fifth Element include it being an excellent mix of action and comedy – Bruce Willis' talents as a comedic actor are often underappreciated – set in a wild sci-fi universe.
Some people especially praised Willis' acting in it, even if such praises sometimes are tongue-in cheek – Bruce's character in The Fifth Element, Korben Dallas is a surly, difficult man, just like Bruce himself was already becoming at that point of his life.
Others turn the common accusation of The Fifth Element having a really simplistic plot on its head and say that they liked it as being an accessible sci-fi movie when they were kids. But the most to-the-point praise? "Just plain entertaining".
Yes The Fifth Element definitely was not a high-brow cinema, and even its director, Luc Besson, admitted that it was not a "big theme movie", even if he strongly denied that it was "stupid".
But just as definitely it was a competently made blockbuster.
It sought to entertain its audience, and, as the reactions evidence, it largely achieved its goal. It was rooted in Besson's childhood fantasies, and it managed to make childhoods of quite a few people at least a bit more fun, so to this day it is still warmly remembered and rewatched.