The Fifth Element is Love

Title: The Fifth Element
Rating:PG-13

Released:1997

Format: Blu-Ray

Version: A very bare bones edition with no special features at all.

Run Time:  2 Hrs and 2 min

Purchased: I forget, but I think I bought it at Best Buy
Price: Let's say $15

 Plot According to imdb.com: Two hundred and fifty years in the future, life as we know it is threatened by the arrival of Evil. Only the fifth element can stop the Evil from extinguishing life, as it tries to do every five thousand years. She is helped by ex-soldier, current-cab-driver, Korben Dallas, who is, in turn, helped by Prince/Arsenio clone, Ruby Rhod. Unfortunately, Evil is being assisted by Mr. Zorg, who seeks to profit from the chaos that Evil will bring, and his alien mercenaries.

Plot According to Allen: Alright so there is this giant ball of evil out in space that is slowly coming towards Earth and the only way to stop it is with these magical stones.  In a race for the stones it is Bruce Willis versus Gary Oldman, just try and guess who is the good guy and who is the bad guy (hint: Oldman is the crazy and creepy looking guy.)  Along his way Bruce has the lovely Leeloo fall into his life and she becomes the key to the whole saving the earth thing.  So really it's a love story.

In all honesty I have always had a soft spot for the Fifth Element.   From it's vibrant colors and vivid environments to it's rich history and of course wonderfully simplistic story it really is a perfect movie.  It is Sci-Fi enough to satisfy any nerd, action packed Bruce Willis with a dash of a half naked Milla Jovavich for the guys that encapsulates a really beautiful love story for the ladies.  Yeah that's right that movie that features Bruce Willis digging through the chest cavity of a blue tentacled singer is a love story.

The action really is minimal in this movie, but it is perfectly timed to keep the pace at perfection.  Yes Chris Tucker is annoying as Ruby Rhod but you know what?  If the biggest complaint I can come up with is that a minimally used side character is mildly annoying but still entertaining I'm gonna go ahead and let that one slide on Allen's scale of awesomeness.

There is no real debate here - this movie belongs in your movie collection and your collection is not complete until this is there.  The only real debate is if you want to have this on Blu-Ray or DVD, and honestly even the bare-bones special feature free version that I have on Blu-Ray is a must own for your Blu-Ray collection though I am a little worried that the good folks at Columbia will try and hit me up for a double dip by releasing a special collector's anniversary deluxe edition with an entire second disc full of awesomeness and a somehow even crisper transfer that will run about $35 just to trick the early purchasers into buying two copies of the same movie.

AND I WILL BUY IT FOR IT WILL BE AMAZING!

Final verdict: 5 out of 5

300 or Mainstream Gay Porn

Title: 300

Rating: R

Released: 2006

Format: Blu-Ray

Version: The first Blu Ray release, not the Ultimate or whatever edition that came with a book and all sort of cool stuff.

Run Time: 1 Hour 57 minutes

Purchased: Black Friday shopping at Target last year.
Price: $5

Plot according to imdb.com: In 480 BC, the Persian king Xerxes sends his massive army to conquer Greece. The Greek city of Sparta houses its finest warriors, and 300 of these soldiers are chosen to meet the Persians at Thermopylae, engaging the soldiers in a narrow canyon where they cannot take full advantage of their numbers. The battle is a suicide mission, meant to buy time for the rest of the Greek forces to prepare for the invasion. However, that doesn't stop the Spartans from throwing their hearts into the fray, determined to take as many Persians as possible with them.

Plot according to Allen: Okay so there are these guys that are total badasses, and they are all ripped like you would not believe.  Through out their lives they are trained to do nothing but kill people.  Well it turns out these other guys are trying to take over the world and enslave everyone.  The Spartans (the badasses not the cheerleaders) aren't going to take that crap and they devise a plan to save their land and to teach the Persians (the bad guys not the cats) a lesson that size doesn't matter.  Oh and a lot of people die.

It really is hard to find fault with 300.  It is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, even at four years old.  The style at the time was groundbreaking, though thanks to the unoriginality of Hollywood it's style has now been driven into the ground while being simultaneously raped and murdered.  The first time I saw it my initial response was wow this is such a great movie full of masculine role models in a day and age where everything is trying to make men devoid of their inherit masculinity.  Instead of giving these 300 soldiers feelings and emotions they give them swords and shields and free reign to murder in slow motion.  The fights scenes are some of the most majestic and moving pieces of the movie.  While hand-held camera effects seem to dominate the action genre (Dear Michael Bay and the Bourne series - eat a dick.) this takes the exact opposite approach and leaves you to witness every cut, the stabbing, every single bit of grit and beauty there is to war.

The attention to details in painstakingly being honest to the source material shows just how much the director loved the original graphic novel.  It really does seem to play like a living and breathing comic book.  The deep and rustic colors of each frame seem to act as a character of the movie more than some of the actual characters.  Each turn will drag you in deeper and deeper into this land where you really feel like you are there.

Now this does not mean the movie is without faults.  The movie is an unapologetic love story to the male fraternity that is soldiers, which means developed male characters, but it definitely leaves the few female characters underdeveloped and weak.  Even some of the male characters are developed simply by saying hey are soldiers that will die for their King.  The movie seems to run about fifteen to twenty minutes too long, thanks in part to that slow motion fight sequences I praised just 2 paragraphs back.

All in all this movie isn't one of those that I would deny owning or feel I need to make excuses for it.  It was well worth the price that I spent on it, and in fact I would most likely pay full price for it and gladly add it to my collection if for no other reason than it is one of the most beautiful looking films I have ever seen in HD.  Simply a must own.  No seriously go buy it right now.  I will wait.

Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5