Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 4.0
Better late than never
The Messenger is currently airing on cable TV, and I will confess to being so amused and intrigued by the chunks of Luc Besson's big bellyflop that I was seeing in Cinemax's edited and cropped version that I went out and bought the DVD in order to give this film a proper second look. A decade ago, following the fantastic one-two punch of Leon and The Fifth Element, Besson suddenly seemed like the greatest popular moviemaker in the world. So, back then, I went to see The Messenger with sky-high expectations that were only bound to be disappointed. At the time, the movie seemed not only a pointless retelling of a story that has been filmed countless times but, worse yet, a mere star vehicle for Besson's then-girlfriend Milla Jovovich.Ten years later, during which Besson, sadly, has been unable to recapture his earlier promise, but during which Jovovich has actually proven her chops as an actress sans Besson, The Messenger really does deserve to be reconsidered. It turns out to be a smartly-mounted, crisply-edited medieval war movie, more entertaining than Braveheart and others in this genre, and its light, humourous style actually seems prescient in terms of some of the less reverent historical epics that have been produced since. John Malkovich, who, back then, just seemed old and miscast as the Dauphin of France, now somehow seems spot on, a most knowing parody of his own egotistical image, and Jovovich, despite her technical limitations, is full of energy and fire and, as always, looks fantastic. There are even amusing echoes of Besson's more seminal work, with the story bearing striking similarities to that of The Fifth Element (beautiful girl suffused with a higher power saves medieval France instead of the world) and Tcheky Karyo providing a bemused sort of Leon to Jovovich's Mathilda on steroids. Besson's Joan of Arc may not be a candidate for cinematic canonisation, but it's a terrific movie that never deserved to be burned at the stake.