Review: Joan of Arc 4K UHD
With an international cast and a shed load of money, any film fan would know it would be unlikely that Luc Besson’s Joan of Arc would have much semblance to the actual story of the Maid of Orleans. Milla Jovovich (Joan) is incredibly pretty in this film, and just terrible at acting. Her pale blue eyes are quite dazzling, and her leaping about squawking at the generals and knights she fought with is really bloody annoying. The woman can not act.
Luckily, her terrible performance doesn’t spoil the spectacle of the film, a look at the Middle Ages through 1990s French eyes is pretty impressive.
The story itself is sort of like the real one, a light touch Joan, where we see her have a vision, meet the French Dauphin (John Malkovich) and his mother-in-law (Fay Dunaway, who, in fact, is the only character who looks like she ought), then ride off to war with her knights (Vincent Cassel, Tchéky Karyo, among others), ending in her betrayal when she was of no use anymore. I do think If Besson had picked a better actress to play the part of Joan this would be a wholly different film. Milla is just too hammy and shrieky. The supporting cast are all excellent, and really do give great performances, which makes Milla stick out like a sore thumb.
For me, this is an enjoyable film if you can put aside Milla being awful, and just look at the scenery and spectacle.
Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the extras as our review disc wouldn’t work; however, the extra ‘In the Footsteps of Joan’, on the main film disc, was very interesting. A feature-length – well, not really a documentary, more of a film of making a film, with costume and make-up trials, lines being learnt and comparisons with the actual film. A great addition.
CONTENTS:
UHD Disc:
●Feature
●Making of (86 mins)
- Interview with André Labbouz, technical director (5 mins)
Blu-ray Disc 1:
●Feature
- Interview with André Labbouz, technical director (5 mins)
Blu-ray Disc 2:
- Making of (86 mins)
- Interview with Gérard Krawczyk, second unit director (25 mins)
- Interview with Thierry Arbogast, cinematographer (8 mins)
- Interview with Sylvie Landra, editor (16 mins)
- Interview with Catherine Leterrier et Olivier Bériot, costume designers (28 mins)
- Interview with Hugues Tissandier, production designer (32 mins)
- Interview with Bruno Tarrière, sound designer (35 mins)
JOAN OF ARC is available to buy on SteelBook and Digital.
Review by Tina from discs kindly supplied by Studiocanal via Fetch Publicity.
