Luc Besson
182 connections found
Filmography
Lucy 2014 
Nikita 1990 
Léon: The Professional 1994 
The Fifth Element 1997 
Subway 1985 
Anna 2019 
The Big Blue 1988 
Atlantis 1991 
The Lady 2011 
Angel-A 2005 
Arthur and the Invisibles 2006 
The Family 2013 
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 2017 
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc 1999 
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Connections, in both directions
Lucy is like 2001: A Space Odyssey meets The Tree of Life for Dummies, lots of flashing on nature footage of, say, a cheetah with its scared herbivore prey, in case you missed out on how Lucy, before she got supercharged, was like a little soft baby doe about to get fanged by a nasty predator.
The director seems to want these interpellations to convey the scene's universal resonance, rather like the prologue to 2001: A Space Odyssey or that trippy creation sequence in The Tree of Life.
If you’ve always wanted to see “2001: A Space Odyssey” remade as a Eurotrash action film starring Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman and the guy from “Oldboy,” with all the ass-kicking, car chases through Paris and special effects – along with the entire history of the universe, “Tree of Life”-style – packed into 90 minutes, then your ship has come in.
The title refers not only to the main character but also to the famous fossilized skeleton, an ancestor of Homo sapiens; Besson implies that both represent the birth of a new species, turning this enjoyable shoot-'em-up into a dumbbell 2001: A Space Odyssey.
These episodes are indebted to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” film adaptations of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” and, more recently, Terrence Malick’s time-tripping “The Tree of Life.”
Obviously inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and Neo in “The Matrix” franchise, Besson even takes the name Lucy from the fossilized skeleton of man’s earliest ancestor, Australopitchecus afarensis, which was discovered in 1974.
In a nod to the French classic “La Femme Nikita,” Jung clearly wants to make both an action film and a complex character study, but the flashbacks turn out to be bullet duds that don’t add any dimension to Sook-hee.
(There are more than a few shades of Luc Besson’s classic La Femme Nikita here, and Jung makes sure to reference one of that film’s more memorable scenes, when Sook-hee must interrupt a romantic moment by going into a bathroom, assembling a sniper rifle and taking a shot at her assigned target.)
After that, The Villainess, which is nothing is not eagerly derivative, toggles over to La Femme Nikita mode.
In this schizophrenic thriller, Luc Besson’s 1990 noir classic La femme Nikita gets yet another makeover via the story of a beautiful girl trained to kill.
With its swarming squads of black-suited assassins, its overload of guns, swords and corpses, and its cold-eyed killer women, his movie blithely recalls such earlier revenge thrillers as the Kill Bills, the John Wicks (already a part of the international action pantheon), and La Femme Nikita, with maybe a faint whiff of the old Japanese "Baby Cart" pictures as well (little kids make several intrusions here).
Channeling “La femme Nikita,” “Kill Bill,” Nikkatsu’s ’70s female exploitation films and a gazillion Hong Kong martial arts heroines, “ The Villainess ” nonetheless succeeds in being one-of-a-kind for its delirious action choreography and overall narrative dementia.
Red Sparrow (2018)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
influenced by Nikita (1990), Anna (2019)
Plot Themes
Directed by Francis Lawrence, Red Sparrow wants to combine the lurid danger of La Femme Nikita with the cerebral suspense of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
But Red Sparrow isn't an ass-kicking female-driven flick in the vein of Atomic Blonde, Haywire or La Femme Nikita, or even the action spin on Black Swan that it nods to in its name.
And no, the Oscar winner can’t quite pull off the Black Swan-meets-La Femme Nikita role.
It’s another in a line of female-centric thrillers that began with Luc Besson’s 1990 La Femme Nikita, in which a woman’s power is always double-edged.
Our heroine is soon unleashed onto the world, a little like Luc Besson’s “La Femme Nikita” but without that film’s visual coherence or empathy.
Red Sparrow is basically La Femme Nikita (and its American remake, Point of No Return) with a Russian accent and a lot more graphic sexual content.
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Directed by Lana Wachowski
influenced by The Fifth Element (1997), Léon: The Professional (1994)
Visuals
Audiences will unavoidably, unfavorably compare Jupiter to past enjoyments like Star Wars and The Fifth Element, and the Wachowskis do no favors by taking a break in the story for what amounts to a five-minute Brazil fan film, complete with a cameo by director Terry Gilliam.
Sadly, even they are overshadowed by the movie’s garish production design which borrows liberally from Marvel Studios, “The Fifth Element,” Moebius, and bastardized Gothic architecture.
However, it plays out like a convoluted mix of The Princess Diaries meets The Fifth Element , with the siblings blending an overabundance of sci-fi premises and visuals.
There are conspicuous echoes of Stars Wars, The Fifth Element, Transformers, Men In Black, Brazil (Terry Gilliam has a small cameo), Signs, and at least a dozen more.
Luc Besson managed to juggle similarly assorted planets and subplots in the air, or lack thereof, with 1997’s The Fifth Element, but Jupiter Ascending has little of that space opera’s zany genius.
What I’m saying is that there’s about a 50-50 chance that Jupiter Ascending becomes The Fifth Element of the 2010s.
The linking of Mr. Kickass and a precocious preteen girl recalls The Professional, only that film did something with its fanciful matchup.
Yakin somewhat goes that route by having the actor spend quieter moments with his young charge, which may remind some viewers with long memories of something similar between Jean Reno and young Natalie Portman in "The Professional."
Safe borrows a modified version of Leon: The Professional 's premise.
The picture could use more scenes like that one, although perhaps Yakin didn’t want to make a retread of Luc Besson’s crazy-wonderful Léon, which paired Jean Reno’s hitman with the littlest hitgal, played by an astonishingly young Natalie Portman.
Borrowing a page from Luc Besson’s “The Professional,” a hyper-intelligent little girl leads Luke out of his depression.
For Statham, the role doesn't venture far from the taciturn territory he occupied in the "Transporter" series, with a touch of "The Professional" given his empathy for this orphaned tyke, whose precociousness proves a hit-miss proposition as the movie progresses.
Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
Directed by Navot Papushado
influenced by Léon: The Professional (1994)
Characters Themes Plot
Other examples include “Hotel Artemis” and “Terminal,” and to that growing list we can now add GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE , a highly stylized and very entertaining movie (that also borrows from 1994’s “Leon: The Professional”).
If Emily’s bold declaration, “I’m her apprentice,” calls to mind Natalie Portman in Luc Besson’s Leon: The Professional , that’s far from the film’s most brazen borrowing.
Also, the film’s attempt to evoke the adult-child bonding of Luc Besson’s “The Professional” does not even come close.
Giamatti is perfect as the slimy crime boss, and Chloe Coleman is rather adorable as Sam’s young sidekick who, like Natalie Portman in “The Professional,” yearns to be an apprentice.
Most in the genre owe something to his earlier work, such as La Femme Nikita and The Professional, and I’ll admit these are among my all-time favorites.
It’s a stylish riff on a film like Leon: The Professional , where Karen Gillian plays Sam, an assassin that becomes saddled with protecting a little girl whose father was one of her targets.
— sometimes playing like Limitless remixed by Godfrey Reggio.
You will never shake the fact that "Lucy" is a borrowed concept from films like "Limitless" and "Transcendence" and anime classics like "Akira."
…fantasy on the order of 2011's Limitless .
He makes no bones about ripping off other movies (“D.O.A.,” “The Time Machine” and “Limitless” come quickly to mind), nor is he shy about throwing a wrench into the mechanics of quality filmmaking.
Then again, Besson probably got the idea by opting to use only 10 percent of his own noggin to make this movie, as the accomplished writer-director of The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita doesn't seem especially interested in presenting anything particularly memorable with this concept — even Bradley Cooper's so-so Limitless, a 2011 offering with a similar plot, provided a bit more food for thought than Lucy.
It’s an even wilder ride than what we’re used to seeing from Besson in what amounts to a rather artsy film that’s a sort of “Limitless” combined with “The Tree of Life.”
Star Wars (1977)
Directed by George Lucas
influenced The Fifth Element (1997), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Themes Visuals
Bruce Willis stars for imaginative French filmmaker Luc Besson in this English-language futuristic saga that deserves a place on the same shelf with such other innovative trend-setting films as Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Blade Runner and Brazil.
This is one fantastic space opera from French filmmaker Luc Besson, who doesn't have much to envy to George Lucas... besides the fact that the "Star Wars" creator thought of all this 20 years ago.
The Fifth Element is a junk-heap melange of Blade Runner, Total Recall, Star Wars, Splash, Die Hard, StarGate, Scarface, Diva, the Star Trek series, and God knows what else.
The "Star Wars'' movies look deep, even philosophical, in comparison, but never mind: We are watching "The Fifth Element'' not to think, but to be delighted.
In some sequences there is that grunge look that harks back beyond "Star Wars" to John Carpenter's "Dark Star" (1974), which may be the most influential least-known movie of the past couple of decades.
There's an "Indiana Jones"-style prologue set in an Egyptian crypt; a quick-cut transition from past to future out of "2001"; a "Blade Runner"-style cityscape (lightened up a bit) with deep-canyoned streets filled with flying automobiles; and a "Star Wars"-like death star that takes the form of a roiling lava-globe, headed straight for Earth.
"The Fifth Element" from Columbia TriStar is almost literally a comic-book adventure, a comical sci-fi fantasy that may seem vaguely familiar to you because it was clearly inspired by the opening segment of the 1981 animated film, "Heavy Metal," which in turn was inspired by the "Heavy Metal" comics.
While it doesn't go for the dark dystopic look, it does borrow liberally from the European Heavy Metal magazine's visual style (and most specifically, from the artist Moebius).
Even when the film is idling, Dan Weil (who's worked with Besson since "The Big Blue")-- leading a design team that includes Jean "Moebius" Giraud (illustrator of "Metal Hurlant," aka "Heavy Metal," magazine) and Jean-Claude Mezieres, illustrator of the Valerian, Agent Spatio-Temporel graphic novels --and costumer Jean-Paul Gaultier ("The City of Lost Children") make sure plenty is going on visually.
The director, working from a comic book-type script that he co-wrote with Robert Mark Kamen (and which bears a certain resemblance to one of the segments of Heavy Metal), injects a ton of offbeat, sporadically-effective humor into the movie, frequently causing The Fifth Element to cross over the line into self-parody.
If Besson has crafted a less memorable twist on The Matrix, Lucy is also, for what it's worth, a far less self-important film.
Obviously inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and Neo in “The Matrix” franchise, Besson even takes the name Lucy from the fossilized skeleton of man’s earliest ancestor, Australopitchecus afarensis, which was discovered in 1974.
Giddily recycling everything from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Matrix” to yakuza actioners and National Geographic documentaries, it’s a garish, trippy, wildly uneven and finally quite disarming piece of work, graced by a moment-to-moment unpredictability that will pique audience curiosity but may put off those who prefer their summer movies on the more conventional side.
Sections may remind you of the original "The Matrix" and the last hour of "Akira," and the final ten minutes play like a Greatest Hits of science-fiction "trip" movies.
Johansson plays Lucy as a mouthy hanger-on who’s transformed into a ninja Carrie White in The Matrix.
The result, however, looks similar, with fantastically blossoming black goo sucking up computer info, gobbling everything in sight, and kicking us around various parallel dimensions, including a quick tribute to the white-space dimension of “The Matrix.”
Aquaman’s jet-propelled splash through its various imagined underwater kingdoms proves genuinely entertaining, offering up differently calibrated undersea realms that recall James Cameron’s Avatar, the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft (whose story The Dunwich Horror appears as an early bit of set-dressing) and the archly operatic Luc Besson of The Fifth Element and Valerian.
He borrows a bit from The Fifth Element, too.
Esta cinta se siente como una mezcla de Ant-Man and the Wasp con Black Panther , un poco de la cacofonía visual neón de Thor: Ragnarok , algunas tomas robadas de Harry Potter y The Fifth Element , una pizca de Nathan Drake y La Momia noventera.
Wan’s exhilarating adventure makes overtures to a few films, like Indiana Jones , The Fifth Element , The Lord of the Rings , and Jurassic Park.
It’s a film that feels more indebted to the assuredly zany work of directors such as the Wachowskis (particularly Jupiter Ascending) and Luc Besson ( Lucy , Valerian ) than to grim-and-gritty DC Comics movies such as Suicide Squad .
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
influenced by Léon: The Professional (1994)
Characters Themes
And if nothing else, you can spend its running time recalling better movies it seems to pay tribute to — Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Mona Lisa, The Professional, Oldboy, Drive.
There’s a little bit of Jean Reno’s “The Professional” in Joe, and a little bit of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver” as well.
Drawing on Jonathan Ames’ novella, “You Were Never Really Here” has Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” in its bones, and its bursts of the work of a killer for hire are certainly prefaced by sleek work in Luc Besson’s “The Professional” (1994), the character’s PTSD anticipated by the metallic madness of Lodge Kerrigan’s terse terror, “Clean, Shaven” (1993).
He also loads up with visual oddities of the cosmos and human prehistory, like an amped-up recut of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life."
These episodes are indebted to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” film adaptations of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” and, more recently, Terrence Malick’s time-tripping “The Tree of Life.”
A valiant if ultimately futile attempt to graft a brainy mind-bender onto a traditional action film template, Luc Besson's Lucy frequently comes across as The Tree of Life as directed by Michael Bay.
Like some demented combination of "Taken" and Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life," "Lucy," the latest from Luc Besson, is a full-out action movie - and a sober rumination on the nature of existence.
Terence Malick could conceivably have been drafted to take a whack at Lucy’s final minutes, which bear some resemblance to The Tree of Life as well as 2001.
That scene manages to cobble together 2001 (1968), The Tree of Life (2011), Altered States (1980), the Sistine Chapel ceiling (reconfigured with Scarlet Johansson and the Australopithecus Lucy) — and more.
In some sequences there is that grunge look that harks back beyond "Star Wars" to John Carpenter's "Dark Star" (1974), which may be the most influential least-known movie of the past couple of decades.
Hanna (2011)
Directed by Joe Wright
influenced by Nikita (1990), The Fifth Element (1997)
Plot Characters
The movie takes elements of "La Femme Nikita" and Natalie Portman in "The Professional," along with portions of the comic-book gals who've wielded weapons at the multiplex (take your pick, there have been several in the past year) and plunks it all down in a not-very-brave new world.
It's not meant to be real, only a relatively asexual variation on the glossy slaughter games of "La Femme Nikita."
A Stranger in a Strange Land meets La Femme Nikita.
In addition to “The Fifth Element,” the film also borrows from “Run Lola Run” (staircase scene), “La Femme Nikita” (escape from headquarters scene), etc.
Think La Femme Nikita facing down Bullwinkle Moose's Natasha Fatale, incorporating breakneck running á la Run Lola Run (but without that film's clever conceit of random events leading to alternate realities).
Ronan is one of the greatest actors of her young generation and she is captivating here not only as a pint-sized assassin (evoking both La Femme Nikita and Natalie Portman in The Professional), but also in her extraordinary childlike wonder at the world blossoming around her. Isolated for her entire life, things as basic as music, electricity, airplanes, television and even best friends and handsome boys are utterly foreign concepts and more often than not present themselves as an avalanche of sensory overload.
Total Recall (2012)
Directed by Len Wiseman
influenced by The Fifth Element (1997)
Visuals Plot Themes
The result is a vibe that’s part-Blade Runner (with more technological glitz), part-The Fifth Element (minus Gaultier’s flair) and effortlessly immersive.
Set in a dystopic 2084 that lifts an awful lot from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and a pinch from The Fifth Element, Quaid's psychotropic journey from obliviousness to self-actualizing, anti-government insurgent feels right, but Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback's script rarely gives the viewer time to ponder this poor guy's exceedingly existential crisis.
With " Total Recall ," it's like it's trying so hard to be " Star Trek ," then switches gears and jumps to " I, Robot ," then " Minority Report ," then " Blade Runner ," then " The Fifth Element ," and the list just keeps piling up.
You’ll also find similarities to the campy sci-fi flicks “Judge Dredd” and “The Fifth Element.”
If The Fifth Element comes to mind while watching Wiseman's efficient, action-packed retake, well, yup, those floating cars and multitiered, M.C.
Quaid lives in a metropolis that looks like Wiseman took two cityscapes from “The Fifth Element,” stacked one on top of the other around the labyrinth from “Cube,” and then bow-tied the whole thing together with the multi-tiered freeways from “Minority Report.”
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Directed by George Lucas
influenced by The Fifth Element (1997)
Visuals
A sky city chase, reminiscent of The Fifth Element, is a kick in the pants, as is a fun Coliseum scene involving attacking monsters that reminds me of Gladiator.
And it's not hard to start wondering if the cityscape of the planet Corusant is inspired by or ripped off from movies such as "Blade Runner" and "The Fifth Element."
The first act gives us an extended aerial car-chase sequence across Coruscant that’s reminiscent of a similar scene from The Fifth Element, but worth more than that entire movie plus the pod race from Episode I thrown in for good measure.
After dispatching the two lethal centipedes released into Padme's sleeping chamber in a second assassination attempt, Anakin and Obi-Wan give chase in a scene which resembles a low-rent "Blade Runner" crossed with "The Fifth Element."
As with Star Wars , Lucas has stolen from every movie he could lay his hands on (Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Gladiator, even Galaxy Quest, among many others), but he makes it work – the opening chase and, in particular, the final 45 minutes, are among the most exciting action sequences you’ll see all year.
The entire film seems to be stealing from something or another (The Fifth Element, Gladiator, Blade Runner, on and on and on).
Johansson channels Robert Patrick’s T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day as Lucy’s mind accelerates at the speed of light.
Sliding into theaters between Aliens ’ Ripley and Terminator 2 ’s Sarah Conner, Nikita is transformed, over the picture’s running time, from a comatose junkie into a fast-moving, fast-thinking killing machine; she’s quite literally unconscious in the picture’s first shoot-out, but her three years of training make her into a ruthless, powerful government assassin.
It’s not every day (hell, every year!) that a Terminator 2 , The Matrix or Inception delivers that trifecta.
The Man from Nowhere (2010)
Directed by Lee Jeong-beom
influenced by Léon: The Professional (1994)
Plot Characters
Brutal violence dominates the dynamic Korean thriller “The Man From Nowhere.” Local heartthrob Won Bin (“Mother,” “Tae Guk Gui”) transforms himself into an action hero in writer-helmer Lee Jeong-beom’s swift and blood-soaked yarn, about a mystery man who gets caught up in a gang war while trying to protect a child, recalling Luc Besson’s “The Professional.”
There’s Europe, or European-ish: When So-Mi and her mom are abducted by a particularly ruthless gang, one that sells smack and illegally harvested organs, Tae-sik wipes the bedraggled bangs from his eyes and takes up arms once more–what the bad guys don’t know is that he’s a highly trained military operative who has gone underground to bury traumatic memories (recall Jean Reno in The Professional ).
If the above sounds like it takes its cues from Leon (or The Professional , depending on the territory), or even Man On Fire , then you’re not far wrong.
It’s The Professional meets Taken, and yes, it’s almost as awesome as that mash-up makes it sound.
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Directed by Rupert Sanders
influenced by The Fifth Element (1997), Lucy (2014)
Visuals Characters
While the film brings the futuristic city found within the anime and manga to life with intricate detail involving skyscraper-sized holograms, harsh fluorescent lighting, and tall buildings crammed so close together that the entire city feels crammed, you can’t help but be reminded of films like Blade Runner and The Fifth Element .
There are nods to “The Matrix,” HBO’s “Westworld,” “Enter the Void,” Björk album covers, “The Fifth Element,” “Lost in Translation,” you name it.
Anyone who has seen Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” or that film’s innumerable 2.0 follow-ups (“Strange Days,” “The Fifth Element”) will recognize this “Ghost” cityscape, with its jumbled forms, neo-noir shadows, patina of art-directed decay and its conspicuous Asian-Hollywood fusion touches.
I think I could hang in Blade Runner or The Fifth Element, but this is like Minority Report to an exponential degree.
Johansson seems to be channeling similar traits that she tapped into while filming Lucy , which isn’t anything new but it gets the job done.
It’s the kind of role that almost feels like typecasting for Scarlett Johansson when you consider the post-human trilogy of “Her,” “Under the Skin” and “Lucy” from a few years back.