This is one of those odd movies for me to review, in that I feel like I really should have a review of it here after all this time, and yet I also feel like I’m kind of spent in my enthusiasm for it with the distance. I hated it when I first saw it on the big screen in 1997; but then, I hated a lot of things that year. I do know that every viewing since that, at least until this one, it got better everytime. This time I really started to wonder if it was really all about the beautiful orange-haired Milla Jovovich.

Every time I watch my favourite Luc Besson movie, Leon, I cringe even more at the boyish nature of the violence especially at the opening – like it really might as well be a bunch of 10 year olds running around going, “pitchoo!” at each other – and that stuff’s even more abundant in this movie. At the same time, however, it’s a lot more palatable due to the genre, especially once you start taking it as tongue-in-cheek comic-bookery. Oddly, the things that I despised most walking out of the multiplex in 1997 – Chris Tucker, Lee Evans etc – are the things I got the biggest kick out of (second of course to Milla) this less-than-ecstatic viewing. I’d forgotten about the Lee Evans appearance entirely, in fact.

So, is it really anything more than the half-naked orange-haired beauty of Milla? I guess first I want to say, even just considering Milla: she’s a lot more than that in this movie. I find her performance even more marvelous each time I see it and it’s a reason in itself to watch the movie even over the brief nudity and general heartstopping beauty of the girl. It nearly bears comparison to Jodie Foster’s Nell for me. The scene where she learns about war makes the movie for me, combining the best of her performance with just exactly the thing about the movie that does raise it above mere eye-candy. What it comes down to in the end, that conflict in Leeloo, “What’s the use of saving lives … when you see what you do with them?” – it’s simple but beautiful and it gets me everytime, even if it’s a long and clunky time coming. At least there’s Milla to get you through the dodgy parts.

Yikes. Remind me what made me think I’d love this again? Oh yeh – Kenneth Branagh + Stephen Fry with the look of old Ken Russell. Unfortunately I’d forgotten that this type of music on non-stop for 2 hours just makes want to tear my skin off and escape, Fry libretto or no. You’d think that with all the tricks Branagh pulls in bringing this thing to the big screen – I’ll admit, it’s visually stunning – not to mention employing such a clear-headed wit as Fry to translate/interpret/whatever the lyrics, the story might come across much clearer for those of us who hold that as one of the major reasons to avoid opera. Sadly, I’m still no wiser as to what the hell this is about – and worse, even though it’s all in the English language, thanks to the singing style, you still can’t understand half the lines. They even break the flow at certain points with spoken dialogue which I found just added insult to injury.

It’s possible I just wasn’t in the mood for this today, and a second viewing could certainly do it favours. But I really don’t know when I’ll find the time to venture there again. It looks and sounds wonderful, but I really found it otherwise all over the place.