WEIRDLY REFRESHING `ELEMENT'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

I have seen the future, and it's a mess. But considering how grim or simple-minded most science fiction movies are, ``The Fifth Element's'' mad, barely coherent playfulness is actually pretty refreshing.

Exploding with disorienting tonal shifts and unnecessary weirdness, ``Element'' plays like a French comic book that hasn't been accurately translated into English. Kind of proper, given that the movie was designed by ``Heavy Metal'' graphic novelists Moebius and Jean-Claude Mezieres, outfitted by Parisian fashion provocateur Jean-Paul Gaultier and directed by ``La Femme Nikita's'' Luc Besson.

Don't let the fact that Bruce Willis stars fool you. ``Fifth Element'' is as dada as big-budget effects monsters get these days.

Willis is 23rd-century New York cab driver Korben Dallas. ... No, wait. The movie actually begins in 1914 in the Egyptian desert. A bunch of hulking, armor-plated aliens with tiny bobbing heads land at an archeological dig, where they seal up some ancient weapon system that's powered, somehow, by the four elements: earth, wind, fire and water.

By 2259, when the big intergalactic darkness - or whatever it is that thing in Egypt was supposed to combat - is heading Earth's way, everyone starts searching for the fifth element that will fire the gizmo up. That turns out to be a superpowered little waif woman called Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). Not that she can't take care of herself, but Dallas, a former Special Forces trooper, winds up protecting her from a universe of predators, including a demented priest (Ian Holm), a wealthy and evil businessman (Gary Oldman with a fey goatee and hokey Dixie accent), a bunch of shape-changing dog-faced mercenaries and various government functionaries.

For some reason, they all wind up on an outer space luxury liner, where they listen to an alien opera singer and get harassed by a hyperactive radio personality named Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker, even more manic than he was in ``Friday,'' if you can imagine such a thing). It's all played for smiles, mostly; even the elaborate, high body count gun battles emphasize clownish acrobatics.

While fun and unusual, this narrative approach, dreamed up by Besson when he was a teen-ager and co-written with Robert Mark Kamen (``Karate Kid,'' ``Lethal Weapon III''), grows too jokey and diffuse for its own good. There's no urgency to these save-the-universe antics because all the emphasis is on the antic. It's like the Three Stooges tackling the Dark Side of the Force for more than two hours.

Then again, tuning out the story makes it easier to concentrate on ``The Fifth Element's'' astounding visuals. Mark Stetson and his crew at Digital Domain have created as kinetic and colorful a future as any that's ever been put on film. Their New York alone, a bustling, gravity-defying fantasia reaching miles into the sky, is a masterpiece of mass movement and scintillating speed.

In every department, down to the silliest detail, Besson and his design divas have expended enough wit and imagination on ``The Fifth Element'' to power a dozen fantasy movies and the theme park attractions to go with them.

And it's all in the service of a story that makes about as much sense as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Fifth Element'' (PG-13; violence, nudity, sex).

The stars: Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Luc Besson. Written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Produced by Patrice Ledoux. Released by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: Two hours, seven minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three Stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Bruce Willis is a 23rd-century cabbie and former Special Forces trooper caught up in a futuristic adventure in ``The Fifth Element.''