Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Cinematic style battles substance
..and is defeated.The main problem appears to stem from the lack of realism, it is simply not sufficiently believable for a historical epic.Jovovich is not remotely convincing as a leader of men, showing neither charisma nor divinity. She's just plain mental.John Malkovich is totally miscast as the young King, and quite why Dustin Hoffman's part exists at all is a mystery.The battle scenes are visually impressive but show us only the spectacular gore, and none undoubted horror and fear of the battlefield. Five invincible nobles cutting a bloody swathe through dozens of doomed English Knights and foot soldiers would be more at home in a Conan film than a historical epic.And the accents? Although nowhere near the farce that The Man In the Iron Mask was, the mixture just doesn't work. English and Americans playing Frenchmen share dialogue with Frenchmen playing Frenchmen and we end up with a compromised mess. The only way to tell identify who's supposed to be English is that they have as yet undiscovered Northern English dialects and swear.On the positive side, Faye Dunaway is good, as are all the French cast.I can't help thinking that had this been made in French with a French cast, a more subtle Joan and more realism in battle, it could have been a great film.But it wasn't, and it isn't.