Fifth Element, The (Blu-ray) (Remastered) (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Trivia-Fact Track
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	125:53
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Luc Besson
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Bruce Willis Gary Oldman Ian Holm Milla Jovovich Chris Tucker Luke Perry
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Eric Serra

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Linear PCM 48/16 5.1 (4608Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Linear PCM 48/16 5.1 (4608Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Spanish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Luc Besson's The Fifth Element is a strange mélange, part mainstream blockbuster, part foreign surrealism, and part sci-fi fantasy. It's like a foreign art house film, but produced for a modern, western pop-culture audience brought up watching music videos. Any of DVD's early adopters own at least one copy of this cult film. Although only ten years old, The Fifth Element has been released on DVD in standard definition to wide acclaim in no less than three different versions (including a Superbit edition); And now The Fifth Element is available to enjoy in high definition.

    This film has been reviewed on this site four times previously, so I will keep my plot synopsis brief: The year is 2259, and Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) is an alien "supreme being" with the power to save the Earth from being destroyed by an approaching fireball of pure evil. She is assisted in her noble efforts by former government agent, but now a NY cabbie, Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), and a secretive but knowledgeable priest, Cornelius (Ian Holm). According to Cornelius, the only thing that can save us are four stones representing the four elements - earth, wind, fire, and water. But they must be combined with a mysterious fifth element. Meanwhile, the villainous Emmanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) is a wealthy industrialist, also trying to get his hands on the "five elements". Along the way they are joined by a number of other outlandish characters, such as a loud and obnoxious celebrity, Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker), and a blue-skinned alien Diva, Miss Plavalaguna (Maiwenn LeBesco), who memorably performs an aria that blends classical opera with techno music.

    The plot, however, often takes a back seat to the film's striking visual imagery, with its innovative presentation of our dystopian future, complete with an urban NYC mega-sprawl, interlaced with a confusing jumble of flying cars. Of note is the fantastic work by production designer Dan Weil, director of photography Thierry Arbogast, visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson, and costume designer Jean-Paul Gaulthier.

     The Fifth Element is bursting with fun action sequences, quirky comedy, bizarre characters, and completely weird nuances and scene detours throughout. It remains a magnificent example of how an artistic filmmaker can transport an audience into a fantasy world of their imagination.

Video

    Earlier this year, Rob G reviewed the now withdrawn BD release of The Fifth Element. His review can be found here. Seemingly due to savage reviews globally on sites such as this one, and widespread consumer dissatisfaction with the poor quality of the transfer, to their credit, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) announced they would release a remastered version of The Fifth Element on Blu-ray, as well as offer consumers a free "Replacement Exchange Program" for those who had purchased the original BD. While we received a review copy of the original BD, I don't believe that it was ever released for sale here, so any copy of The Fifth Element sold on the BD format in stores locally, should be the remastered version.

    SPHE have struck a new master for The Fifth Element and increased the disc capacity from a 25GB BD to a 50GB BD. SPHE also dropped the older MPEG-2 compression, in favour of the more recent AVC MPEG-4 compression.

    The Fifth Element is now 10 years old, and in parts (especially the opening scenes of the film), the high definition transfer lacks the sparkle of more recent films. That said, it is noticeably better than the withdrawn version, and far better than the standard definition versions. In short, as with the BD of Bram Stoker's Dracula, while limited at times by the quality of the aged source material, the high definition disc is now the best presentation of this film to date, and currently, it is the ultimate way to enjoy this film at home.

    The transfer is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1, in a native 16x9 frame. This is the film's original theatrical ratio.

    The new transfer has been mastered in 1920 x 1080p, and it is noticeably sharper and more detailed than both the previous DVD and BD releases. For example, consider the perfectly delineated text on the computer screen at 12:13, and the fine detail and depth in the cheering crowd at 21:55. The black level is good, and the shadow detail has noticeably improved. For example, consider the scene where the characters run through a dark tunnel at 112:27.

    As with the last release, the colour palette is excellent, with a lot of richly saturated hues and bright tones for the surreal and vibrant sets and costumes. The skin tones are fairly accurate, but at times seem slightly oversaturated.

    The transfer enjoys an average bit rate that usually sits above 30 Mbps. There is still some grain present in the source material, but there has been a vast improvement from the dusty and dirty print, laced with film artefacts that helped ruin the last BD release. There are no obvious problems with MPEG or film-to-video artefacts, but there is still some very slight telecine wobble, but to be fair, it is only really noticeable during the opening credits. Also some minor edge enhancement is also noticeable at times.

    English and Spanish subtitle streams are included, and the English ones are slightly simplified, but accurate.

    This is a BD-50 disc. The feature is divided into 16 chapters.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The Fifth Element Remastered BD offers four audio options: An immersive uncompressed 48KHz/16 Bit English Linear PCM 5.1 audio encoded at 4.6 mbps, English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio encoded at 448 kbps, uncompressed 48KHz/16 Bit Spanish Linear PCM 5.1 audio encoded at 4.6 mbps, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio encoded at 448 kbps.

    As mentioned above, the BD's Linear Pulse Code Modulation (Linear PCM) audio is encoded at 4.6 Mbps. Linear PCM is not necessarily lossless, but the higher the sampling-rate and the bit-depth, the closer the LPCM audio is to the original recording. Although LPCM is supported by the DVD standard, it is very rarely used because it requires such a high bit rate, which takes up valuable disc space. But with dual-layer BD's enjoying 50 GB of disc space, movies on BD can take advantage of uncompressed PCM as an audio option.

    There is extensive use of ADR, but the dialogue quality and audio sync are excellent.

    The musical score is credited to longtime Besson collaborator, Eric Serra, and it is suitably innovative and imaginative, while underscoring the action sequences well.

    As with the previous DVD releases, the surround presence and activity is brilliant. The wonderfully immersive sound-stage features excellent use of ambience, such as the applauding crowd at 92:21, as well as a great deal of rear directional effects during the gun battles. The score also effectively appears in the rears throughout, such as at 32:16.

    As one would expect, this is a LFE-heavy audio track at times, and the subwoofer is used very effectively throughout.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    As with the withdrawn Blu-ray release, this BD is bare bones:

Floating Pop-Up Menu

    As with other BDs, the menu can be accessed while the film is playing.

Fact Track

    With the option of English or Spanish, trivia relating to the film's production appears as text onscreen during the film.

    The Fifth Element was also released on Blu-ray in Region A (North America) in a remastered edition, and in terms of content, our disc's are identical, except that our BD misses out on a new 48kHz/20-bit English Dolby TrueHD audio option that was included on the Region A Remastered BD.

    Note, sadly the many extras from the two-disc, standard definition Collectors Edition DVD have not included here.

    If you're high definition capable, then upgrade your DVD copy of The Fifth Element, but hang on to the Collectors Edition DVD for the extras.

    The video quality is vastly improved, and is the best presentation of this film to date.

    The audio quality is immersive and excellent.

    There are no meaty extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall