The film opens--after a cheezy title sequence--with a young Joan confessing her "sins" to a priest. She goes to confession EVERYDAY--sometimes more than once. The priest loves this girl but seems concerned with her obsession. She tells him she sees visions. They are of a boy in the forest. He reassures her to listen to the boy. She runs from the church in and dances through the fields in a laughable "Little House on the Prarie" meets "Sound of Music" scenario and stumbles into the boy. She finds a sword and is invinsible against wolves and men on horses that prance by. This sequence is only interesting in the sense that this is the only scene in the movie where you get a sense that Joan's perception of reality is indistinguishable from her visions.
The soldiers are from England. They are at war with France. John Malcovich (the future king of France) plays the part very foppishly--with a cute, Tom Cruise look alike always by his side.
He hears of this 19 year old who has been foretold to be a savior that must be seen by him. She is summoned to his kingdom. Enter Milla and you expect her to start screeching like she did in the painful "The Fifth Element."
Never does Besson explore where Joan's obsession with Jesus comes from. Why does an 8 year old girl feel the need to run into a church, drink the blood of Jesus and want to be part of him? No exploration of that or where the visions come from.
Now comes the trite exploration of Joan as a woman and a leader. You'd think this would be explored intelligently, but we are greeted with five minutes worth of lines like "is she going to wear a dress to battle?" before they see how tough she is and they accept her.
The rest of the movie is nothing more than uninspired battle scenes where Joan comes across as nothing but a crazed woman. How much more interesting if Besson had actually made her more magical. Her visions of Jesus in the forest--dancing with her, bleeding, and instructing her--aren't as spiritual and overwhelming as they should. They come across as an acid trip from "Trainspotting" that border on the exploitational.
Instead of trully exploring the relationship she has with God contextually, Besson decides to have Milla utter the same lines over and over throughout the movie. "I am the messenger," "He sent me a message," "I've been to counsel," "Why aren't you fighting," and "listen to me." What a waste. And throughout the movie she just screams and screams and screams.
Besson feels that the only way to make the movie interesting at this point is to fill every frame people with big ears, people who look like Lyle Lovitt, people with bad haircuts, people with slanted eyebrows and people with oversized heads stand in the background doing nothing but staring at the camera. No rhyme or reason.
People like Dunaway do their best with the relatively worthless part that they are given. She plays Malcovich's mother-in-law and basically gives him meaningless advice while sporting a bizarre greyish vein on her forehead and no hair.
The film only gets points when Dustin Hoffman enters the pictures. He plays her "vision" in the jail cell and he interestingly makes her analyze her life and the meaning of her conversations with Christ. Did you really speak with Jesus or was that you projecting? Nicely done, but eventually his presense becomes laughable--especially seeing him "slide" into frames. You can't help but picture the dolly he must be riding.
In the end your left thinking of Joan as nothing more than a bland, naive woman. I mean, Besson makes the mistake at one point of having her being ignorant that people die in war and shed blood--ridiculous when you consider that she had just won a war the day before. Katheryne Bigelow was to direct this, and even though I'm not a fan, I know she would have done better. A hack job by Luc and an admirable attempt by Milla. You spend half the movie just waiting to see her burn
The soldiers are from England. They are at war with France. John Malcovich (the future king of France) plays the part very foppishly--with a cute, Tom Cruise look alike always by his side.
He hears of this 19 year old who has been foretold to be a savior that must be seen by him. She is summoned to his kingdom. Enter Milla and you expect her to start screeching like she did in the painful "The Fifth Element."
Never does Besson explore where Joan's obsession with Jesus comes from. Why does an 8 year old girl feel the need to run into a church, drink the blood of Jesus and want to be part of him? No exploration of that or where the visions come from.
Now comes the trite exploration of Joan as a woman and a leader. You'd think this would be explored intelligently, but we are greeted with five minutes worth of lines like "is she going to wear a dress to battle?" before they see how tough she is and they accept her.
The rest of the movie is nothing more than uninspired battle scenes where Joan comes across as nothing but a crazed woman. How much more interesting if Besson had actually made her more magical. Her visions of Jesus in the forest--dancing with her, bleeding, and instructing her--aren't as spiritual and overwhelming as they should. They come across as an acid trip from "Trainspotting" that border on the exploitational.
Instead of trully exploring the relationship she has with God contextually, Besson decides to have Milla utter the same lines over and over throughout the movie. "I am the messenger," "He sent me a message," "I've been to counsel," "Why aren't you fighting," and "listen to me." What a waste. And throughout the movie she just screams and screams and screams.
Besson feels that the only way to make the movie interesting at this point is to fill every frame people with big ears, people who look like Lyle Lovitt, people with bad haircuts, people with slanted eyebrows and people with oversized heads stand in the background doing nothing but staring at the camera. No rhyme or reason.
People like Dunaway do their best with the relatively worthless part that they are given. She plays Malcovich's mother-in-law and basically gives him meaningless advice while sporting a bizarre greyish vein on her forehead and no hair.
The film only gets points when Dustin Hoffman enters the pictures. He plays her "vision" in the jail cell and he interestingly makes her analyze her life and the meaning of her conversations with Christ. Did you really speak with Jesus or was that you projecting? Nicely done, but eventually his presense becomes laughable--especially seeing him "slide" into frames. You can't help but picture the dolly he must be riding.
In the end your left thinking of Joan as nothing more than a bland, naive woman. I mean, Besson makes the mistake at one point of having her being ignorant that people die in war and shed blood--ridiculous when you consider that she had just won a war the day before. Katheryne Bigelow was to direct this, and even though I'm not a fan, I know she would have done better. A hack job by Luc and an admirable attempt by Milla. You spend half the movie just waiting to see her burn