Friday Feeling – Hot Shots: Part Deux vs The Fifth Element
Friday, March 14th, 2008Yet again we’ve experienced an even split – this week is a closely tied toss-up between the high-larious high octane Hot Shots: Part Deux, and the weird and wonderful star-studded sci-fi gun fest The Fifth Element.
Hot Shots: Part Deux (ITV2, 10:40pm) – genius spoof sequel, timely broadcast following the recent spate of Rambo re-runs. Following the Coalition Invasion of Iraq/Second Gulf Distraction (delete as appropriate) this also makes for slightly uncomfortable viewing, seeing as the villain of the piece is none other than Saddam Hussein (”Now I will kill you until you die from it!”). Part Deux also bucks the sequel trend in being better that it’s unfunny predecessor by actually being funny.
The Fifth Element (Channel 4, 9pm) – Luc Besson’s lavish sci-fi romp starring Bruce Willis as a luckless taxi driver, Milla Jovovich, as a “perfect being” cloned from a statue (!) and Gary Oldman as a Hitler-cum-hillbilly with a penchant for violence, and a pre-Rush Hour Chris Tucker as a camp as Christmas chat show host. Whilst Willis doesn’t totally experience a full John McClane moment, he does get to indulge in some wife-beater action whilst shooting up entire rooms of bad guys. Bearing in mind that Die Hard 2 was shown on ITV2 mere weeks ago, we don’t feel that the general viewing public is currently capable of handling two doses of Yippie Ki-Yay is such a short succession, so it’s probably for the best.
