THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC
Needs Chris Tucker as an androgynous DJ

  I'm writing up this review because it's been a while since I've written ANY review - not a lot of time to see movies lately, I just moved into a house and it's a bit of a fixer-upper - and I'm getting antsy.

Event films always come in twos these days, and 1999 Joan Of Arc projects are no exception.  Firstoff we had Christian "Scanners II" Duguay's two-part TV miniseries with Leelee Sobieski - great casting choice, beautifully shot, about as exciting as watching cockroaches fuck.   And now for the big screen (boasting one kick-ass poster) we get Luc "The Fifth Element" Besson's version, starring the woman who was his wife for about as long as it took to make the movie, Milla Jovovich.

What I don't know about Joan Of Arc could push a battleship underwater.  Let's see, she was French, she was under 20, probably wore a suit of armor at least once, she was probably fairly charismatic...yeah, that's about it.  Most looks at other people's reviews for this movie have suggested that her story was basically just a puffed-up French invention to distract from their "cheese-eatin' surrender monkey" worldwide reputation (thank you, Groundskeeper Willie).  Wouldn't surprise me.

Kathryn "Strange Days" Bigelow was originally slated to direct this one but insisted on Claire "very expressive eyes, ruins everything when she actually talks" Danes on the title role, so I'm just as glad that after all the sturm and drang Besson and Jovovich are the ones on the final project.  Mind you, that hardly makes it a topnotch - or even recommendable - film, but hey, anything's gotta be better than Claire Danes.

So Jovovich stars as young Jeanne - that's Joan to you heathen Englanders - who as a young lass (played by another actress) comes across a sword in a field and has a fabulous vision, and then comes home to the find everything in shambles from the raping and pillaging hands of the English.  A (totally fictitious, I hear) scene in which Jeanne's sister is raped and murdered - no, not in that order - starts off this movie on a hysterically perverse note; it's probably the disgusting, offensive, ghastly thing I've seen on the big screen all year, so needless to say it was all I could do not to bust a gut laughing.  Sometimes it's nice to see a director just go way too far; it's a refreshing change from all the directors who don't go nearly far enough.

So Jeanne grows up, has more visions, puts on a suit of armor, and is eventually used by the Dauphin (John Malkovich, which I guess makes this that other John Malkovich movie out there right now) for his own political ends.  Eventually she goes on trial and gets burned at the stake, prompting teary-eyed test audiences to protest "Why did she have to die?"

I rather like Besson's work; The Fifth Element was probably the most effortlessly enjoyable space opera since The Empire Strikes Back - or, well, at least Star Trek II.  This is a fairly obvious attempt for him to make his own Braveheart, with the next best thing to himself in the lead role (that is, his wife), and while it has its moments, it ain't no Braveheart; take that as you will, Braveheart-naysayers, but just about any movie with a scrotal impalement will get praise from me and Braveheart rocked my world.

Basically what we have is a female-fronted, French Braveheart, that somehow manages to be goofier yet a lot more pretentious.  How the hell does that happen?  Jeanne's visions are the stuff of laughably cheesy symbolism in those "spiritual journey" films which I avoid like that "Blue" song which makes me want to KILL KILL KILL.  Right down to the closing shot, of a big cross behind Jeanne's charred corpse, it's like we're being told "BEHOLD OUR MARTYR!" except in French.  I don't recall Jeanne's last name, I hope it started with a C.

And yet, it's goofy, and very knowingly goofy.  What's with that scene where a catapult stone used against the English has the word "HELLO" carved across it?  I don't remember if that was a catapult liberated from the English, but if the French wrote that themselves, wouldn't they write "BONJOUR"?  That rape/murder scene gives me the impression of the kind of thing that less-uptight-than-Canadian audiences might feel less nervous about laughing at, especially considering its brutally funny punch line.  After being shot with an arrow, Jeanne actually stage-dives into the waiting arms of her army.  And the English are hilariously stereotyped as totally uncouth barbarians, dumping pots of stew on the table so they can pick out the chunks of meat, yelling vulgarities at Jeanne, not to mention all those bad teeth.

But the battle scenes mostly work for what they are.  In the place of Braveheart's thousands-strong clashing armies are scenes of siege; particularly interesting is watching the various mechanisms for both siege and counter-siege.  Like a rotating-boot thing which punts scaling invaders right off the ladders, or these totally inefficient-looking tubes down which boulders are rolled and shot out of a port, crushing any soldier foolish enough to stand directly in front of it.  It's all brutal as all bloody hell, which is good (who wants a subdued, bloodless siege scene?)

Jovovich plays Jeanne as a woman more than a little off her rocker, which makes her fun to watch even when the movie as a whole asks for (though probably doesn't deserve) a more solid performance.  Besides, she's a big cutie and she passes the suit-of-armor test (if you can still be a big cutie in a suit of armor, you, young lady, are a big cutie indeed).

The supporting cast is fun - Malkovich does a wimpier version of his Malkovich-villain thing, and Dustin Hoffman turns up late in the movie in a small, very entertaining little role as, uh, Jeanne's conscience, I guess, or something.  He gets a great sequence where he suggests to her that maybe finding that sword in the field might have just been a fluke.  Also good is Tcheky Karyo (the "I rape your skull!" guy from the guilty-pleasure romantic comedy Addicted To Love) as the tired soldier who has to repeatedly remind Jeanne of battlefield realities.

I guess there's no way I could really recommend this movie, what with its totally incoherent mess of attitudes about itself.  The battle scenes are effective on their own, but seem clunky when attached to this already overlong movie, especially that one at Paris (I think it was Paris) which mostly consisted of French soldiers giving each other foot-boosts to try to get over forty-foot walls.  The trial at the end feels slow even though it works, somehow.  Jeanne's childhood is just boring, up until that thing with her sister.  The goofy tone of much of the film renders the attempts at seriousness goofier still.

Besson remains a pretty interesting director in my book; a bad movie from him is probably a lot more fun than a good one from Christian Duguay. (no offense, Christian, I loved The Assignment and thought Scanners II wasn't half bad either) 

I may not know much about Joan Of Arc, but I really don't understand one scene in which a young man with REALLY awful teeth tries knocking the teeth out of a dentally healthy Englishman simply because he has good teeth.  I don't get it; he sounds like he needs those teeth for something.  What's he going to do, wear them as dentures?  Somebody help me out here.

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