DVD Review: The Messenger: The Story Of Joan Of Arc.

I am a major Luc Besson fan. I love almost anything he touches (directs, writes, produces... though mostly directs). As such, there are few films that he's made/directed that I haven't yet seen. The Messenger was one of them, and I'd been wanting to see it for years now, but never getting around to doing so. And now that I have... well, I wish I could take it back.

Joan (Milla Jovovich) is a peasant girl who, as a child, saw her village (and some of her family) destroyed. Now about 17, she believes God has chosen her as a messenger to speak with the rightful king of France (John Malkovich) and lead his army to victory against the British to reclaim French territory. And if you know the story of Joan of Arc, you know it isn't exactly a comedy.

And that's the biggest fuck up (pardon my French... and my bad puns) of the film. The tone is just terrible. During even the most serious of moments were strewn with most likely unintentional comedy that ruined most of the scenes. And then there were the scenes with intentional comedy that mostly didn't work. Tonally, the film was an utter mess.

And that leads in to how we feel about Joan (whose name sounds more like John through the film). Among other things, which I'll get to momentarily, Joan is portrayed as a flat-out lunatic. I know that in history, the controversy is that either Joan was really having visions and hearing God's message... or she was shizophrenic and just a strongheaded crazy lady. Besson really goes with the latter, and (again, bad pun coming) that really ruins what should have been the message of the film. Joan is so obviously insane that she's more of a joke than a martyr. By the time the movie ends and you see the title about how she was eventually canonized as a saint, it feels more like a mockery ("This crazy-ass chick is a saint?"). It was just a weird juxtaposition of information. It would be like having a movie that shows the true nature of Bin Laden and how he believes God told him to kill the infidels and take back his rightful land or something. But then he's arguing with himself the majority of the time, twitching... and then the movie ends with him dying in a cave... it fades to black... and you see "He was later canonized." The movie was supposed to be this ultimate tragedy, and it wasn't.

But Joan had other issues, and I'm not sure if I should put the blame on the acting or directing (as much as I'd hate to). When you first see Milla-Joan, she's this meek young woman who is near tears the entire time. Then there's this huge time lapse with no montage or training sessions or anything, and you see her on a war horse with a sword, and her personality has completely shifted. She's become this strongheaded, arrogant, crazy woman. And she got on my freakin' nerves. Seriously, there's a scene about halfway into the movie where she gets shot by an arrow. I know she's not gonna die because, well, there's still half a movie left and I know my history. But when she got shot, I couldn't help but do a mental cheer and wish that she would. Either the way Milla played her or the way Besson directed her was horrible.

Not to mention, with only a few exceptions, the casting of the film was awful. I've already discussed Milla. I like Malkovich, but a French king with an American accent surrounded by other people with accents? Why not just pick a French person? Or at least have Malkovich attempt an accent. And that was a big issue for most of the cast. It was a weird mix of nationalities (that should have been one nationality), and they didn't even attempt to make it more authentic. And then, of course, there's Dustin Hoffman, who I didn't realize was in the movie. So when I saw him near the end, I was like "what the hell? Dustin Hoffman?" He acted his part very well, but the character was too vague. It's listed as her conscience, but you don't know if it's that or Jesus/God or Satan or who. And his character brings in some of that awkward comedy (the 'where did the sword come from' scene... funny, but out of place).

For editing, it was hard to tell a lot of what was going on sometimes. One minute Joan would be one place, the next she'd be in a completely other place with things moving like a dream sequence. But then it turns out that it wasn't a dream sequence, and you're left confused. Though that could be an issue of scripting, as well. And I do think the script had some issues.

Overall, the movie is just a mess. My opinions aren't completely negative. There was some good cinematography (at least at the beginning) and some good (although miscast) acting. The fight scenes were decent, though incredibly fake-looking when it came to the blood or gore. It got overly cartoonish and sometimes slapstick at times, which just goes back to the tone. But now I'm going back to the negative during my positive section. I know this movie has a lot of lovers, especially at places like imdb. But although I have my deep love of Besson's films, and I'll still continue to see any others he puts out, I have to say I was highly disappointed in this one, and it took quite a bit not to just turn it off.


The Zed Word

2 In 1: Miss Potter and Finding Neverland.

This 2 In 1 focuses on movies based on two famous children’s authors with even more famous works of literature. Both movies also tend to have a bit of magical realism played into it, for better or worse.

Miss Potter.

This film is based on Beatrix Potter, famous for writing and illustrating the children’s story The Tale of Peter Rabbit. But the movie, really, isn’t about that. However, it’s hard to pinpoint what the movie is about. It really isn’t a story about her rise from nothing to fame, because she starts off rich and gets published in the first scene of the movie and then begins to gain fame within the first 30 minutes. It’s more of a love story between Beatrix (Renee Zellweger) and her publisher, Norman (Ewan McGregor), as well as her friendship with Norman’s sister, Millie (Emily Watson)… as well as her relationships with her parents. So if I were to be asked what this movie is about, I’d answer ‘the many relationships of Beatrix Potter.’

Obviously one of the major faults of the movie, to me, is that it has no clear purpose. The movie moves as an almost breakneck speed, leaving no room for plot, character development, or chemistry. It moves from scene to scene adding more tidbits on the life of Beatrix Potter without really extending on any given moment besides its importance on the surface level. There was no real chemistry between Zellweger and McGregor. There was only a marginal bit of chemistry between Zellweger and Watson. But none of the characters really grew. They all stayed exactly the same, including Beatrix. Sure, she moves on with life and eventually stands up for herself… but she did that numerous times in other different ways as shown in the movie. There needed to be a lot more to the movie, especially on the character of William Heelis, who has all of 4 or 5 scenes in the entire movie, but turns out to be highly important in Beatrix’s life. His complete lack of screen time gives the audience no ability to attach to him or actually care about what the heck happens (much like with any character in the movie). And then within the last 15-20 minutes of the movie, it continues to go in a completely unimportant direction before abruptly ending. There’s no real conflict or climax to the movie. It’s just like “moments in the life of Beatrix Potter.”

As for acting, I felt Ewan McGregor and Emily Watson did the best job. Renee Zellweger, though I’m not sure why, got on my nerves. Something about the way she acted the part was just irritating. Not to mention she came off as clinically insane for most of the movie. It was interesting, at the least, how her pictures kept coming to life via her imagination, but they really didn’t make too much use of the idea (except in one scene to show a mental breakdown, though, as I said, she was arguably already mentally unstable anyway).

I usually talk about a movie more than this, but I honestly don’t know what else to say about it. The movie was at least somewhat entertaining for the most part, though it had a lot of flaws to me, and the last 20 minutes or so was pointless and needed a lot more meat to it. The best visual is toward the beginning when the young Beatrix is picturing her parents getting into a pumpkin-carriage being led by giant rabbits (and driven by a mouse, if I remember correctly). I really didn’t care for Renee’s acting in the part, and the movie could have just used more of a plot in general. That’s about all I can say on that.

Feed Me, Seymour!

Finding Neverland.

How is it that this movie only won a single Oscar again (and only for Original Score, at that)? J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) is a failing playwright, much to the chagrin of his producer (Dustin Hoffman), with a failing marriage with his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell). But when he happens across a family headed by widow Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet), with four boys including the much-troubled Peter (Freddie Highmore), both his life and his imagination find a sudden spark. Even against the wishes of Sylvia’s strict mother (Julie Christie), and through all the slanderous rumors against Barrie’s true purposes with the family, the friendships strive on as Mr. Barrie creates his masterpiece, Peter Pan.

There’s so many wonderful things about this movie. The acting is magnificent, from Johnny Depp all the way down to Freddie Highmore (I would argue that this and August Rush are his two best films). Johnny Depp is great and diverse as usual, as well. The only slight buggy bit was when he kind of dropped the accent to do a pirate accent at one point, which made it more reminiscent of Captain Jack than of a proper Scotsman. The actress that catches my attention the most, though, is Radha Mitchell, who really seems to be one heck of a diverse actress. I mean, she’s played a troubled, badass ship pilot in the Sci-Fi/Horror flick Pitch Black, she’s played the worried mother in the Horror film Silent Hill, and now here she is playing the snotty English woman. It’s just fun to see the range she can take and still do well in (we all know Johnny Depp is pretty much the same, but I’m talking in the terms of actresses here. There aren’t many actresses out there who can do these vastly different roles and pull them all off well).

The sense of imagination/magical realism in the film is handled very nicely, as well. It isn’t played up like J.M. Barrie is insane or whatnot, but simply opening his imagination and inviting everybody else to join him in doing so. My favorite bit, which really shows the contrast between characters, is when Barrie and his wife are going to bed in their separate rooms. Mary opens her door, which is just to a dark bedroom, while J.M. opens his door to a bright, flowery meadow. There’s quite a bit of symbolism between reality and the imagination imagery, which is handled nicely (especially toward the end when Kate Winslet ‘Finds Neverland’, so to speak).

The music was beautiful, obviously, since it won an Oscar for it. This is really a short review, as well, because there’s not much more to talk about. The movie was handled very well on all fronts, and it’s a shame that it was relatively ignored. It’s just a beautiful film overall.

Royale With Cheese

KUNG FU PANDA.

So I finally got around to seeing Kung Fu Panda, and it really was better than I thought it was gonna be. Po (Jack Black) is a panda that sells noodles at his father’s shop. He idolizes the five greatest kung fu warriors of the time: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross), who are all apprentices of Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). But when Oogway (Daniel Duk Kim) prophesizes the return of the evil Tai Lung (Ian McShane), he and Shifu realize it is time to announce the identity of the Dragon Warrior. In what seems to be an accident (though there are no accidents), Po is chosen as the Dragon Warrior, despite his lack of skill and overweight body. Much to the chagrin of Shifu and his five disciples, Po must now train to become the Dragon Warrior of legend and defeat Tai Lung.

First I want to talk about the voice acting. The only name I knew coming into this was Jack Black. Watching the movie, I immediately noticed David Cross’ voice, and recognized the voices of Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, and Ian McShane, though I couldn’t place who they were. Actually, I thought the entire time that Ian McShane was actually Eddie Izzard, because they sounded awfully alike here. It was Shifu/Dustin Hoffman’s voice that drove me crazy the entire time, as I couldn’t place it. But when the credits began rolling and I saw all these big names, including Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, and Lucy Liu, I was incredibly surprised. They all did a nice job.

The animation style was really well done, and I loved the little anime sequence at the beginning before it transferred over to computer animation. The action sequences were a lot of fun, even for a children’s animated movie. There were a lot of fun fight scenes, most of them happening back-to-back starting with the dumpling fight with Po and Shifu. And the final fight wasn’t too short or anticlimactic at all, as sometimes happens in martial arts movies. I thought it was just right.

The movie was also pretty funny and had me laughing quite a bit. Even by the time the ‘ska-doosh’ came around, I had a big smile on my face just because of the context of the scene. What I particularly liked was that the jokes weren't childish fart jokes, and the movie didn’t attempt to put in adult innuendo humor like Shrek to appease the adults. The jokes worked all around the board, and the movie didn’t even have to rely on slapstick non-stop, either. I was laughing from the opening anime scene with just Jack Black’s narration.

There’s not much more to say. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and I wouldn’t mind watching it again. It didn’t have to throw in a romantic subplot, and it didn’t have to have any crazy twist ending like most movies these days, and that was really a breath of fresh air. Just something simple and fun. It was a relatively linear plot, and mostly predictable, but the way it was done worked. I liked it. Awesomeness.

Royale With Cheese