The rating that I'm following is using the good ol' Fifth Element Scale. Not that the Fifth Element was a good movie, but it is funny to use. For the time-being, I'm going to use 5 elements as a perfect movie and 1 element as poor. I know that the original Fifth Element Scale was a relative scale in regards to the movie, but that makes rating too difficult since some bad movies would get a seemingly good rating and really good movies would actually be beyond the scope of the scale.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT SCALE:

1 Element: Shite. An absolute waste of time, money, and celluloid. So bad that you cannot bear to watch it. Usually consists of a stupid plot (if any) complemented with horrible, horrible acting. Absolutely nothing positive to speak of. Examples include Anaconda, The Pest, Firestorm (this one stands out from it's natural disaster cousins as especially poor), Last Action Hero, Congo, End of Days, The Avengers, and many more.

2 Elements: Very bad. The only thing that distinguishes a movie with this rating from a 1 Element rating could be special effects or some cool aspect, but it still does not save the movie. Too many examples to list, but some are ID4, The Lost World, Titanic, Any and all of the Natural Disaster Movies (Twister, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Earthquake (I'm not sure, but I figure there must have been one called Earthquake), Hard Rain, Hot Lava, et al.) The Phantom Menace, Mission Impossible 2, Gone in Sixty Seconds (Ididn't see Gone in Sixty Seconds or Titanic, but I know they belong here).

3 Elements: Average. A movie with this rating probably had some good aspects, but it also had an equal number of bad or silly ones. Overall these movies are enjoyable, but generally don't provoke any real analysis or afterthought. This is still a relatively good rating since a movie in this category had to be well-rounded with few to no aspects that insult the viewer's intelligence. Some examples include Sleepy Hollow, The Fifth Element (HA!), Breakdown, Four Rooms (?), Most of the Bond flicks (I love them, but I can recognize that they're not that good), the Austin Powers series, etc.

4 Elements: Very good. A movie with this rating stood out from the others because it's all around well executed, and usually has some interesting twist. Acting is good, plot is interesting and/or exciting without having to resort to special effects and exploding cars and the like. Examples include Casino, The Thin Red Line (I know nobody will agree with this one), Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, and The Sixth Sense.

5 Elements: A nearly perfect movie. Original and interesting plot. Creative writing and direction. Good cinematography, and very importantly, good acting. It's hard to cite objective examples, since anything with this high a rating could definitely be argued, but here goes (in no particular order): The Godfather I & II, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Schindler's List, Psycho (the original, of course), Brazil (personally, I don't think I'd win this one in an argument), A Clockwork Orange, Amadeus, Braveheart, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, TrainSpotting, American Beauty, GoodFellas...

-Jorge Champin