History Film / TheFifthElement

* FridgeBrilliance: At the beginning of the movie, the Mondoshawans enter the temple, at whom a startled professor asks "Are you German?". This is funny and all that, but when you think that the first scene is happening at the dawn of the First World War, the professor could have simply thought the Mondoshawans were German with some kind of armor.
** It seems strange that a giant ball of evil can make a telephone call, until you remember that it's been eating hundreds of satellites.

* MemeticMutation: "Multipass!"

* OverlyLongScream: Chris Tucker's ear-molesting performance as Ruby Rhod. Akin to a seemingly endless loop of a stuck pig.

* AirVentEscape: Played straight when Leeloo escapes the lab in the beginning. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when she tries it against Zorg; he has a machine gun and the vent is noisy, so he does eventually hit her.

** Complete with AirVentEscape by Leeloo.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Replay feature on the ZF-1 looks cool, but you can only activate it if you've already hit your target.
** [[AwesomeButPractical So lean out of cover, hit the target once, lean back, and send more bullets around the corner.]]
*** Sure, but bullets in real life don't subtract hit points. Very few targets exist that won't go down to one good solid hit from a firearm (like a soldier), yet won't shrug off any number of additional rounds too (like a tank).

* BadAss: Dallas. Leeloo can kick serious ass if she wants to, but she's represented by...

''TheFifthElement'' is a [[TheNineties 1997]] ScienceFiction {{Film}} directed by Luc Besson, starring BruceWillis, GaryOldman, MillaJovovich, Chris Tucker and Ian Holm. Not to be confused with ElementNumberFive.

*** This is actually pointed out in an earlier scene when the President and his staff discuss the actual eating of the satellites. "Maybe it wants to make a call?"

* DulcineaEffect: Korben is moved enough by the shaky pleading of the unintelligible redhead that just fell through the roof of his cab, to get into a high-speed chase with the police.

* GoingByTheMatchBook: Surprisingly, searching and not finding matches is a repeated in-joke.

--> '''Zorg''': I am... disappointed.

--> '''Ruby Rhod''': Are we green?

* {{Casanova}}: Ruby Rhod

* YouMonster: Priest Vito Cornelius tells Zorg "You're a monster", to which Zorg replies "I know."

** And the Mondoshewan, ''twice'': once with the key to the temple, and once with Leeloo herself.

[[ExtyYearsFromNow 2263]], where the Great Evil is starting to form itself. On their way to deliver the five elements back, the aliens are shot down by a ship of [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy another race of proud warrior aliens]], who steal the box which would contain the stones. The remains of the "fifth element" are found and Earth scientists reconstruct it, generating an [[HeroesWantRedheads orange-haired]] MysteriousWaif, Leeloo, that after breaking out of the lab, [[CarCushion dives into a taxi]] driven by ex-soldier Korben Dallas. With the Great Evil getting closer, it falls to Korben to help [[OverlyLongName Leeloo]] save the planet.

* DudeShesLikeInAComa: Dallas kisses an unconscious Leeloo: he realizes this was a bad idea when in the next moment she's woken up and is [[ClickHello pointing his own gun at his head]] while angrily saying something in an alien language. Fittingly, what she says is translated by the priest as "Never without my permission".

* FoodPills: Leeloo pours a small amount of food pellets into a bowl, puts the bowl in a microwave-like device, closes the door, presses ''a'' button, and opens the door again, pulling out an ''instant roast chicken with all the trimmings''. Forget faster-than-light travel, ''that'' is clearly the pinnacle of human achievement.

The movie opens in 1914, in an Egyptian temple, where an archaeologist, assisted by a reporter, discovers hieroglyphs that report about a Great Evil that is unleashed and tries to destroy all life [[ViciousCycle every five millennia]]: and the weapons to defeat it, [[CosmicKeystone four stones]] representing [[ElementalRockPaperScissors water, fire, air and earth]] and a "perfect being" representing a fifth element sealed in a sarcophagus. A priest on site seems incredibly disturbed that the discovery is being made, going so far as to (unsuccessfully) attempt to poison the archaeologist to prevent the discovery. Just as the discovery is made, the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] who made the temple in the first place (and whom the priest, [[AncientTradition and all those who have come before him]], have secretly served) arrive in a giant space ship and take away the stones and the sarcophagus, explaining that they are unsafe with the [[WorldWarOne imminent war on Earth]]. The aliens also order the priest to continue to take care of the temple and to pass on his knowledge, as it was passed on to him, to prepare for the Great Evil's incoming. The priest points out that they're leaving Earth defenseless, and the aliens reply that when the Great Evil returns, so shall they. Cut to...

[[ExtyYearsFromNow 2263]], where the Great Evil is starting to form itself. On their way to deliver the five elements back, the aliens are shot down by a ship of [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race Aliens]], who steal the box which would contain the stones (because when it's delivered to their contractor, it's empty...). The remains of the "fifth element" are found and Earth scientists reconstruct it, generating an [[HeroesWantRedheads orange-haired]] MysteriousWaif, Leeloo, that after breaking out of the lab, [[CarCushion dives into a taxi]] driven by ex-soldier Korben Dallas. With the Great Evil getting closer, it falls to Korben to help [[OverlyLongName Leeloo]] save the planet.

* ActionGirl: Leeloo.
* ActionGirlfriend: Leeloo again.

** Further emphasized by the fact that [[spoiler: earlier in the movie Zorg mocked the Mangalore's moral code of dying for honor only to be a victim of one of their "honorable" deaths.]]

-->''Mangalore'': [[KarmicDeath "For the honor..."]]

* FridgeLogic: Apparently, future encyclopedias will not contain entries for cruelty, genocide, rape, starvation, murder, torture, etc.
** Keep in mind that Leeloo knows she wasn't made for doing any of those, but knows she was made as a living component of a weapon for the ultimate war. This is the first time she's understood what war IS.
** It's great that Mr. Shadow was stopped, but at only 60 miles above Earth, this new moon would seriously screw up the Earth's gravitational pull, tidal patterns, etc.

* InferredHolocaust: It's great that Mr. Shadow was stopped, but at only 60 miles above Earth, this new moon would seriously screw up the Earth's gravitational pull, tidal patterns, etc.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Zorg, who is bombed when one of his own mercenaries sets one off, mere seconds after disabling the one he himself triggered earlier]], and [[spoiler:Mr. Shadow, who is essentially killed by ThePowerOfLove]].
** [[spoiler:There's no 'essentially' about it. He WAS killed by the power of Love]]

* OhCrap: Zorg has one of these before he realizes that the ProudWarriorRace is going to [[spoiler:manually detonate the bomb anyway]].

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[{{Amelie}} Nino]] wants da cash.

* DownToTheLastMatch