The story takes place during the Hundred Years' War in fifteenth century France, where the young Joan is an illiterate peasant girl that occasionally hears the voice of God. She constantly seeks the confessional at her church with such ferocity she seems like an early sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder. On her way back from confession one day, she finds a sword while rolling around in a field of flowers and believes it to be a gift from the heavens. Joan arrives home to find English soldiers burning her village to the ground and looks on in horror as a soldier kills and rapes (in that order) her older sister.

Years later, seventeen-year-old Joan (Milla Jovovich, He Got Game) is received by The Dauphin (John Malkovich, Being John Malkovich), the man who would be King if the country weren’t being controlled by the English. In one of the film’s better scenes, Joan must find The Dauphin in a room full of people despite not knowing what he looks like. When she passes this test, The Dauphin agrees to give Joan an army to fight the English, who here are portrayed as obscene barbarians with bad teeth. Remember, Besson is a Frenchie.

While the graphic battle scenes are cool, you can’t help thinking how they pale in comparison to Braveheart, especially every time you see blood splashed on the camera. On her white horse, Joan’s voice seems too squeaky to command an army, yelling horribly clichéd lines to incite her troops to battle. Despite her foolish and hasty lack of war tactics, Joan manages to win huge battles in both Orleans and Loire. She even earns a victory in one battle just by telling the English to go home.

About ninety minutes into the film, The Dauphin is crowned King Charles VII and, having attained his lifelong goal, loses interest in Joan’s pursuit of a free France. A little over one year later, Joan is captured in Compiegne by the Burgundians and later sold to the English, where they try her as a witch and a heretic in an attempt to discredit Charles VII. Joan’s incarceration causes her to become delusional, even dreaming up a big-nosed conscience (Dustin Hoffman, Wag the Dog) that tells her, "You didn't see what was; you saw what you wanted to see." This is when the film starts to get interesting, but it’s way too late.

Say what you will about Jovovich’s clumsy performance, she is pretty believable as an insanely fervent girl. An established actress would have been too distracting, especially when crazy Joan hacks off her long tresses to fit in with her male soldier counterparts. The result is the second Matt Damon-esque haircut on an actress this month (see Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry for the other). Even though Jovovich seems all wrong, try thinking of a better actress that could pass for a teenager. And LeeLee Sobieski doesn’t count.

As The Dauphin/Charles VII, Malkovich once again shows that he has become a parody of himself, while Faye Dunaway’s (The Thomas Crown Affair) performance as Yolande D'Aragon is devalued by a distracting purple vein that runs down the middle of her forehead. Besson’s visual, MTV-style direction certainly makes the earlier parts of the film more watchable, but the usually reliable director (La Femme Nikita, The Professional, The Fifth Element) falls flat here. All of the really stylistic images are given away in the trailer. But give him credit for trying to represent Saint Joan’s religious visions as a figment of her imagination. Maybe those wacky Dogma protestors are picketing the wrong film.

2:35 - for extremely graphic violence, intense battle scenes, rape and adult language. Oh, and the whole burning at the stake thing, too.