 "The best movie I have seen." | 2009-11-21 |
| - Reviewed By jackwilletts |
| Milla Jovovich looks fantastic and so is her acting. I've never seen a movie that is so believable. The supporting cast is absolutely the best I've seen. I've never heard about most of them but they are great and along with Mill Jovovich make this the best movie I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie. After seeing this by accident I bought all of Milla Jovovich's movies {They, along with all other movies don't come close to this Masterpiece]. |
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 "Better late than never" | 2009-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By Matthew Watters from Vietnam |
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. |
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 "Still Looking for the Genuine Joan but entertaining nevertheless" | 2009-10-07 |
| - Reviewed By SteamaZon |
As a movie, certainly entertaining, but don't look for anything historical here since it must have been a Joan from an alternate universe being depicted. For example, in this movie Joan has deep angst about her sword she may have found in a field.
While in fact this Sword:
"- --In place of the sword offered to her she described in detail the location and appearance of a sword in the Chapel of St Catherine de Fierbois. It was found deeply buried exactly where she had described and the blade was so covered in rust it would have been impossible for her to describe it without having seen it before. The rust readily fell off when the blade was wiped. -- "
Perhaps this film is a conspiracy of the irreverent, irreligious and atheistic working to "deconstruct" Joan; to convince a modern, uninformed audience she was a raving schizoid lunatic leading the superstitiously ignorant to lucky victory; with a flaming end. Or not.
Aside from that, I found it entirely entertaining filled with arrow sticking battle scenes and screaming mayhem. Once I brainwashed myself into believing that actress Milla Jovovich was portraying a personality from the bizzaro world instead of a real-life historically significant figure, I actually enjoyed the film.
I give it 5 stars minus 3:
1 For Milla Jovovich
1 For the incredible exciting siege sequence
-1 for being magnificently historically inaccurate
-1 For conning me to believe this was a movie about Joan of Arc
-1 For being so unfaithful to her hard to believe true story making up stuff when it's so easy to Google it out the Real Deal otherwise (hmm, insult my intelligence comes to mind...)
Buy it for the two stars though, the siege IS really good...
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 "Fun...But not historical." | 2009-09-23 |
| - Reviewed By Sweet Serenity |
| While the movie proves entertainment if you are looking for a historical movie this isn't it. Joan's talks to G-d and the saints make her seem as if she had a psychological problem, and seveal scenes make her look demonic. While i wouldn't watch this for historical value it is definalitly entertaining. |
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| "Pure excellence" | 2009-08-16 |
| - Reviewed By Ankur Mukherjee |
| Truely one of the best Biographical films ever made, ever witnessed on screen. Not very often does an interesting historical charecter show up in cinema, some actors get immersed in the charecters so well, so fine... you just have to believe that you are taken back right there at that very time. 'The Messenger' is one of those films that carry you all the way with it and take you back to its time, the time where a once little girl who turned out to be a rebellious young woman taking charge of the French army. The lead role is played brilliantly by Mila Jovovich, you simply run out of words when it comes to her performence. The pain, the madness, the temper, the true nature of Joan so beautifuly shown by the young actress. The film as a whole leaves you quite sattisfied, the performence, the acting, the directing, timing and a reasonable score. Look forward to some really good performence. It was good to see Pascal Greggory in a very brief role. A fine piece of cinema indeed. |
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| "John du Prey - Classical Review" | 2009-06-22 |
| - Reviewed By John du Prey from Bloomington, MN |
Yes, I have seen virtually all cinematic presentations about Joan of Arc. Each performance by an actress, who has been forced to stretch her acting talents to the extreme, in order to assimilate character, become Joan within the script and the true story, and accept her destiny of being burned at the stake. Heavy requirements for a young thespian: we can only hope she survives the ordeal and returns to her pleasant self, once the film is completed. It is obvious to me that this role prepared the lead actress (Milla Jovovich) for her intense roles in deadly action movies. I recommended this film at the time, and still recommend it.
Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) with the gifted Maria Falconetti in the lead role and Victor Fleming's Joan of Arc (1948) with the brilliant performance by Ingrid Berman, also in the lead role, remain the film classics for this tragedy, to this day. My Dad and I went to Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc in Rochester, Minnesota, and came away (after the film) with great satisfaction; mainly because of the realistic performances by Jovovich, her generals, her troops, and the battle scenes. There seemed to be a departure in the caliber of story-telling (between Act II, Scene 3 and Act III, Scene 1) after Joan is caught, imprisoned, and tried for religious heresy.
This anti-climax (in the crescendo) can happen when excellent battle scenes with true French actors are followed by sedated, interior scenes; in this case with well-known American actors playing real French persons (without mastery of the appropriate accents). The drama slows down. The voice coach is working in overdrive to plug the hole, so to speak. The lead character must fill the void, once the action ceases; she must, like actresses who have played Phaedra in Jean Racine's great epic drama, create a real-life heroine who is so powerful while speaking exceptional dialogue, that we do not notice the tragedy slowing down in a descrescendo. A mixed review: the French actors were dead-on; the American actors were painful to watch. Pure French drama, like Racine's tragedies and their levels of excellence, would have been examples or models to follow, during the early process stages of this expensive production. |
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