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Joan of Arc (1999)

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22:00-01:00 Fri 30th Dec 2011 180m
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Synopsis

Kathryn Bigelow walked away from this project after refusing to cast Luc Besson's then-wife Milla Jovovich in the title role. Besson took over and cast Jovovich anyway. Sadly, her performance is the biggest problem in this epic story of the peasant girl who led the French to victory over the English. OK, so she's meant to be an innocent, but her teary and naive compulsions are still unconvincing and irritating. The prologue detailing Joan's childhood is dire, but the film does pick up after the entrance of John Malkovich as Charles VII, and there are some remarkable battle scenes before Joan's downfall and death. Besson is a truly imaginative film-maker, and had the film been cut to a standard two hours it might have been a great historical masterpiece. As it stands, it is an overlong piece of directorial indulgence.