I worried for a moment that this was gonna be another movie to suffer from the “Jane Eyre syndrome”. Jane Valentine, the young girl who plays Jeanne d’Arc here aged 8, is not only extraordinary, powerful, everything I in my limited knowledge associate with this person and story, not only is she a dead ringer for Milla Jovovich in the eyes, but she’s also onscreen for a hell of a longer time than I ever would’ve expected. Unfortunately, following her breaking into the church and taking mass underage, it jumpcuts forward so harshly that if I weren’t watching on the TV I’d have feared a whole reel was missing.

When Milla Jovovich appears, she’s so alternately whimpering and up-in-arms it’s at times unintentionally laughable. She, or Luc Besson, or maybe someone else involved, seems intent on showing Joan’s fear under the circumstances and I don’t know if it works, at least not the way they do it. The whole movie, as a matter of fact, suffers similarly from its own desire to entertain and be epic and commercial, etc, and I’m not sure Besson’s frequently boyish direction (you wouldn’t expect it, but some of the goggle-eyed raving here is extraordinarily reminiscent of Jean Reno in Leon) is so suited to this particular story. The occasional attempts at deliberate humour (“There’s an arrow in your leg.” “Oh. So there is.”) didn’t go down well for me either.

It certainly happens upon some stirring and memorable moments … Eric Serra’s score is reassuringly sweeping, there’s some surprising gore in the battle scenes … and ultimately I did find myself believing even in Jovovich’s manic Joan as a leader – if only because she’s sold so much as a gal who did something while everyone else was talking about doing things. The dodgy reshoot hair on Jovovich that I think I’ve heard Mark Kermode mention a few times in talking about this movie didn’t really bug me as much as I expected either – going back to the Leon similarity, she actually looks a lot like Natalie Portman’s Mathilda in her last prison scene. I’m looking forward even more to seeing the old Carl Dreyer silent now, though.

Though it has an array of impressive action sequences and performances , I found this overall just a little too cheesy, especially considering it was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan who wrote the briskly engaging Lions for Lambs. Like, take Jennifer Garner’s character – though I liked her in the role (sorry to sound surprised, I just always still get her mixed up with Jessica Alba and Biel who aren’t quite so consistently impressive), literally the only thing that sets her apart from the others is this huge, “I’m the only woman here!” whine that’s shamefully overdone … here she is bursting into tears in the brief room; here she tells the soldiers not to cross the “pink line”; it feels like we’re meant to be impressed by a woman braving such situations but, oh dear, there she goes again crying over the coffins going home; I find it funny I haven’t got around to finishing this review until after seeing the other day’s “Daily Show” with the thing about Hilary Clinton’s “emotional moment”, ‘cos it’s kinda similarly infuriating, like, look, she’s a woman – see? emotional. Wow. Also, the marble thing I’d been told would be like a “Bruce Willis Sixth Sense moment!” really didn’t wow me much, and the overall message of, “ooh we’re all the same afterall!” was frankly done better in that moment at the end of Volcano when the little boy comments on everyone all caked in ash. Throw it on the “dazzlingly … empty” pile. Suddenly I feel like I’m seeing where all the “it was a bad year” guys were coming from with my recent watchlist. Is it too much to ask for a movie to be a movie from start to finish?

I can’t for the life of me explain why I loved this but I did. Had I time to watch it again before the year is out (not that I’ve much of an excuse – at 88 minutes it’s astounding how much it covers), it’s likely it’d be topping my end of year list, and along with Away From Her it’s one of two films I really think should be up for Best Picture at the Oscars in February though I know there’s not a cat’s chance in hell with either (not to say I might not get ballsy and switch them into my predix at the last minute).

It’s ultimately the work of a liberal smart and world-wearied enough to know that a lot of the politics he once fought for have today gone too far just like the politics of the “enemy” – to the point where there are a lot of people like the student here who are supremely intelligent but so jaded by cynicism they feel not only that the world is beyond saving but also that they’re “above” saving it … that the world doesn’t “deserve” their help because of the way it’s beaten them down.

It’s been said many times that one doesn’t need sex, violence, and coarse language if you actually have something to say. It’s amazing that this movie manages to be just as scathingly political a film as Brian De Palma’s Redacted while being resolutely, humblingly mature about it and giving time to the other side too. It kind of made me feel ashamed for having praised the starkly crude De Palma movie so much. This one leaves you really thinking twice over the cynicism about politics so many of us have not so much taken for granted as absorbed into a status quo. I think this is that rare thing of a movie that could change people – or at least make them think about changing … or indeed, just having an opinion to begin with.