Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32417 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-04-04
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 158 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Over the years, many film directors have attempted to tell the story of legendary 15th-century heroine Joan of Arc, a simple country girl who claimed she was inspired by God to lead the French troops in a victorious assault on the mighty English army. Luc Besson's 1999 epic might not be the best version of her life, but it's certainly the biggest. The movie cost a reported $60 million. Even if you are terminally unimpressed by the scale of such recent blockbusters as Gladiator, your eyes will pop out at the sheer number of bodies (living and dead) that Besson has assembled for the dynamic battle scenes. The lavish sets and costumes are almost equally gobsmacking, though neither will show to maximum advantage on the small screen. That's a pity because size is the only thing Joan of Arc really has going for it--as a human drama, it falls completely flat.

The historical Joan was eventually made a saint by the Catholic Church, and earlier biopics tended to treat her celestial visions as literal fact. It was probably a mistake for Besson and his co-screenwriter Andrew Birkin to take a more psychological approach and present them as figments of her hysterical imagination. It makes it hard to work up the necessary empathy when the spectacle revolves around a confused and neurotic babe who couldn't organise a Tupperware party, let alone a vast military campaign. Milla Jovovich (the star of Besson's previous The Fifth Element and formerly his wife) doesn't help matters with her shrill and amateurish performance. But a couple of the supporting players are passably amusing--John Malkovich camps it up energetically as Charles, the dispossessed French king whom Joan reinstates, while Faye Dunaway wears outlandish headgear and carries on like a science-fiction creation in the role of his scheming mother-in-law. (The less said the better about Dustin Hoffman's pompous turn as Joan's personified conscience.) Besson keeps to the same glossy visual style even when the Maid is burning at the stake, but it isn't enough to prevent this empty shell of a movie from being a colossal yawn. --Peter Matthews

Customer Reviews

Not an epic, but still very good
I found this film very informative and interesting to watch, it's not a film with alot of action which may disappoint some people, but I had no problem with it.

The film moves at a reasonable pace, but rarely does gather pace much more than what you see in the first 15 minutes, but despite this and the fact this film is almost two and a half hours long I did not feel that it was drawn out.

The entire cast put in solid performances, it's only the second film I've seen with Milla Jovovich who plays Joan of Arc, I was particularly impressed with her performance, especially when taking into account that she's in virtually every scene from the time she first appears, good support is provided in particular by John Malkovich, Dustin Hoffman and Timothy West.

Although the music score was good I'd liked to have seen more battle scenes and an even more impressive score, with the quality of the rest of the film then this for me would have turned this into a possible epic, but the result is a good solid film all the same and well worth taking a look.

For the morning after.
As someone who likes to sit for hours, hungover on a Sunday afternoon, watching historical epics, I'll try to be as unbiased as I can.

`Joan Of Arc' falls into that "3 star epic" category that has recently swallowed a number of A-List directors (Ridley Scott's "Kingdom Of Heaven", Stone's "Alexander etc.), but is still a very watchable film, with enough magic moments to make it memorable.

Mila Jovovich turns in a very strong, if at times irritating performance, reminiscent of Anne Parillaud in `Nikita' (before she calms down); Tcheky Karyo is, as usual, excellent, but the credit has to go to Dustin Hoffmann for his role as the "dark" conscience of Joan - a fantastic creative move that renders the last act of the movie the strongest. Hoffmann's subtle performance brings balance to Jovovich's OTT Joan and the two bring magic to the screen.

This is undoubtedly an impressive film, which should provide a short distraction in that period between cooked breakfast and Sunday lunch.

Very poor direction
A very unconvincing film in which Joan one of the true heroes of France and indeed the world is projected as a neurotic fruit cake. Personally I would not have followed Milla Jovovich into battle on the basis of her screeching performance. Who can produce a film which really conveys the astonishing courage of a 19 year old girl leading the French army, ending the 100 years war and essentially creating France as nation? This whimpering Joan doesn't begin to get anywhere near it.