Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

Such a sour, mindlessly inflated experience that seeing it may temporarily put you off historical movies.

L.A. Weekly by F. X. Feeney

The Messenger may be a caricature of theology, but then Besson is a cartoonist of genius.

TNT RoughCut by Matt Kelsey

If all history lessons were this stylish, elementary school would have been a better place.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold

The horror and spectacle of medieval battle has never been re-created on film before with such ghastly beauty.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Blends great cinematic energy with an awkwardly mixed multinational cast and aggressively over-modernized dialogue.

Time by Richard Schickel

A lively, nutty film, one full of clumsy, clanging battles filmed by the gifted, eccentric Besson with bloody brio.

Film.com by Sean Means

While The Messenger feeds our appetite for visual panache, it starves the soul.

Variety by Todd McCarthy

The lack of a plausible leading lady is enough to sink what is otherwise an eye-catching, although heavily '90s-style, telling of one of history's most frequently filmed stories.

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

Inexplicable as it is, the Joan of Arc story encourages contemplation of ourselves as a species. The Messenger is more apt to prompt meditation on the nature of show business.

Mr. Showbiz by Michael Atkinson

It's Besson's stunning visual fluency that takes center stage, and in the end, that's not quite enough.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Desmond Ryan

You might be occasionally dumbfounded by The Messenger, but you won't be bored.

Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector

Luc Besson--and Andrew Birkin wrote the pandering, adolescent screenplay for this pseudosubversive hagiography, and nearly every scene screams out its sensationalist intent, though few actually achieve the status of spectacle.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

Never was the case for psychotropic medication more acute than in Jovovich's performance.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

Besson's account of the Maid of Orleans presents itself as a celebration of a martyr's faith but shows more interest in the violence and hatred that surrounded her life.

USA Today by Mike Clark

Has a three-way split personality, which happily includes an action-packed middle to ease the pain of its early protracted exposition and later action so slow that you'll be asking "Gotta match?" to the person next to you.

New York Post by Jonathan Foreman

Besson is unable to weave the comic scenes together with the serious gory ones, so both seem increasingly jarring and unbelievable.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

Besson loves his violence almost as much as he loves his leading lady.

San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann

Isn't some sober history lesson that bogs down in long speeches and tedious facts. It's about style, it's about fashion, it's about rock 'n' roll busting out in medieval France.