NOW what? For the life of me, I can't imagine why Besson thought that the world needed (yet) another Joan of Arc movie. The "real" Joan wasn't even considered important in France until the 1800's, when her story  was resurrected (and embellished - current scholarship doubts whether  Orleans was actually under siege at all!) But (sigh), he decided to give it  his *treatment*, and this is what we end up with: two and a half hours of  his wife (and "Leeloo" from "The Fifth Element")  alternately screaming, shrieking, or whimpering in the face of anyone who  happens to be standing by. The scrolling text at the opening of the film  was illegible and flipped by so quickly no one could read it, not that it  seemed to matter. Any "plot" is sublimated to the "art"  - gorgeous photography, lush scenery, and realistically violent battle  scenes. Warning - this is serious stuff, not a candied-up rendition of  medieval warfare. Back in those days, you took out your enemy not by  gunfire, but by debilitating them in as serious fashion as possible,  including maces, axes, the ubiquitous swords, and some even less pleasant  and graphically-demonstrated methods. But along the way, Besson loses  whatever guiding vision originally prompted him to make this film.  Characters start to answer questions with "Whatever", the  Dauphine (John Malkovich playing the usual invertebrate) seems less  interested in being King than he is in where the cast party will be, Faye  Dunaway snaps and snarls in a puzzling way (one minute she's Joan's biggest  patron, only to turn on her with no discernable motivation), and in one of  the BIGGEST casting bloopers in the last half of the 20th century, Dustin  Hoffman shows up looking like a retread Obi Wan Kenobe, sounding like  Dustin Hoffman, and is supposed to be "The Conscience"  (apparently because the gaping plot holes required SOME sort of cinematic  asphalt to keep the audience at least partially "in" on what is  supposed to be transpiring). This is certainly the most serious problem  with the movie: if Hoffman is intended to be a sort of mental foil ,  voicing Joan's inner doubts, he certainly takes his time in making his  presence known. If the movie is intended to illuminate Joan's  "human" aspects (as opposed to her spiritual side), then  three-quarters of the film is wasted on one battle scene after another with  nary a glimmer of self-doubt or moral questioning. Buckets of blood, to be  sure.