Had potential, but goes downhill in the second half

I rewatched this recently and I have a summary in PROS / CONS format

PROS

- Setting / effects / cinematography: Besson has an eye for beautiful shots, and it shows. The future is not realistic, but everything has artistic and aesthetic consistency. The World Building is done mainly through visuals which I didn't mind. The effects are still passable today, and they have that 90s charm by now.

Acting: Everyone brings their A-game to this. Willis is playing the same burnt out cop (ex-military here), but that's what he does brilliantly every single time. Ian Holm is a joy to watch, so is to see Oldman having a field day with the Zorg material. I liked Tucker's first appearance as well, his character is hysterical. More on his later appearances in the CONS section. Jovovich is also great, speaking the alien language and displaying overall unawareness of social rules... and pretty much everyone else from the supporting cast have great performances.

CONS

Some plot details don't make sense / are not explained: The outline of the plot is dead simple. But so is Alien's for example, so that should not be a problem... except in the case of TFE it is. To explain what I mean, take the giant evil planet heading towards the Earth. In a really early draft of the script, you can get away with saying "that's pure evil" - you know, just as a placeholder, to pitch the idea. But in the finished film... that's all that it is. It doesn't really do anything, except making people bleed from the forehead, devour a ship and continue coming towards Earth. A few sentences of backstory would have been nice about it. Why the 5000 year period? What does it want? How long this has been going on? Who created the countermeasures (the stones and the warrior) to fight it? Etc. The way it is, it feels way too inadequate, even for a fun action sci-fi movie.

Some character motivations don't make sense: Why is Zorg working for the pure evil that will obliterate all life? Doesn't that include him...? Would have been nice to know what he was promised upon success, but we don't get any indication of that, and thus his ultimate motivations are not clear.

Also, when arriving to Fhloston, Dallas wakes up, and looks for Leeloo. For a minute. Then he is for some reason comfortable with sitting in the front row with Ruby to see the Diva performance, completely forgetting about her whereabouts. Speaking of the Diva, why couldn't she give the stones to Leeloo, why was it so important to sing the song before that? And what was the original method of extracting them from her? We get no answers for these points.

Why did the Mondoshawans kill the archeologist? There was no reason given, other than only the priests could know about the stones and the 5th element. But that seemed arbitrary, not explained at all.

Characters were set up, but left under-utilized: Dallas gets a great shootout, so he can shine - that's OK.

Tucker's first appearance as I said is gold. But following the Diva's song, his quick wits and expressive narration skills can't really shine. I mean it's a great juxtaposition to see that Korben is not great at talking, but is great in action, but Tucker still could have talked / narrated more. Instead he is constantly panicking and doesn't really assist the heroes in anything. Shame, he could have been great, and should have had a scene where his dialogue saves the day.

Leeloo is hyped up as an "ultimate weapon", but she gets one hand to hand combat scene, which was pretty laughable to be honest. After that, she is basically knocked out for the remainder of the movie, and only gets a few sentences at the very end - and she is the title character! Also, her discovering the horrors of "war" never really amounted to anything. Everythig was resolved in a minute, which was disappointing. The entire ending sequence was - in Zorg's words - disappointing and devoid of any tension, as there was no real villain left to confront them by that point...

Even if you have a simple plot, the details of said plot should make sense and should follow an internal logic. Oh, and there is such thing as "too wacky". I get that Besson was looking to direct a light hearted acton flick, but at one point I thought Korben was casually murdering three people, including his former commanding officer. Nevermind freezing, they would have been suffocated in the freezer! And also, a planet in orbit, 62 miles above the Earth would knock everything out of orbit and would cause massive catastrophes. I don't expect scientific accuracy, but just make it explode or something... Even in a wacky film, some ot the situations depicted were laughable... and not in a good way.

Overall, the film got a 7/10 rating from me. The visuals and the acting made the experience fun - most of the time - but the ridiculous scenarios and the overall lack of explanation regarding crucial plot details are massive negatives.