Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 1.0
Total disservice to the legend of Joan of Arc
Being a person who admired the Joan of Arc of our history, I was very much looking forward to the releasal of "The Messenger." I had hoped it would portray Joan in an updated version. How wrong I was.For starters, the movie ran just too long. Movies that are long that people don't mind, such as "Forrest Gump" are tolerated because they were good. This movie was just plain bad.Aside from the fact there are fabricated characters such as Dustin Hoffman's "Conscious," it was historically inaccurate. John Malkovich was too old to play Charles, the interactions Joan had with the English were looked over in order to spruce up the special effects of the wars and it just simply concentrated on the wrong topics of her story. I wanted to know more about Joan, not watch the soldiers brutalize each other.The great disservice this screenplay did was portray Joan as insane rather than having a gift from God. Only a few "miracles" were actually illustrated, such as Joan picking Charles out of a crowd. Jovovich's portrayal of Joan as a shuddering, twitching mental patient was simply unnerving, not at all enlightening. Historic reports indicated that Joan was not at all like the movie version -- quite the opposite in fact.This movie is also more graphic than I could bear. The raping of her sister's corpse was just plain disgusting -- as well as false. This did not happen and Joan's visions began way before any catastrophe...The Messenger concentrates too much on special effects and the action factor of war. Joan is dismissed as a saint in this movie and merely portrayed as an insane woman who pretty much got lucky with people listening to her rants. I have never been so disgusted in my life with a biopic, which is usually what we expect -- a factual version of a historical figure. My recommendation is to SKIP this... and look up an older version of the movie or check out PBS' website for information on specials of Joan of Arc -- they care more about facts than special effects and shock value...