The Fifth Element
★★★
Still going through the NYT's list of prime movie recommendations, I suggested TKTK with Merly Strep and Bruce Willias. Zoia countered with The Fifth Element "It's foundational to my parent's world view".
My dad also loves the movie. I'd caught snippets of it on TV during high school. It was strange watching the whole thing all at once. Willas as a taxi drive in futuristic New York and gunfighting in a hotel while being live broadcast are seared into my head but they don't actually take up much of the movie. Not sure if the flying taxi is an incredibility memorable archetype or if I had never actually saw the other bits.
It was fun seeing the movie keep so many balls in the air and interacting (all the different groups clamoring to get aboard the same fully booked ship!) without descending into complete implausibility. The romantic plot was incredibility abbreviated, but I guess there's a lot emotional beats to hit in a short amount of time that require broad brush strokes. The interestingness and plausibility of the sets/costumes/props hold everything together and are the most distinctive part of the movie.
Annoyingly, the sound mixing was a bit broken. I'm not sure what step of the film -> digitalization -> streaming -> chrome -> macbook speaker pipeline was broken, but we couldn't keep the dialog audible and without the speakers popping. The music during Lulu's initial escape and opera also seem off/discordant in a way I don't think was intentional.