You may have heard the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger,” but after you see Luc Besson’s epic film, you may reconsider. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc is a painfully self-aware message movie without the substance to sustain the supposed complexity of its heroine or its story. Its lugubrious pace, one-dimensional depiction of Joan and lackluster battle scenes left the audience with whom I saw it boo-ing at the end credits.

While historical chronicles of Saint Joan make her out to be, by turns, an angel and a heretic, her story is relatively simple. As a child, Joan (Milla Jovovich) is passionate about her religion and is often plagued by voices and visions that she believes come directly from God. Joan’s “God” tells her that she is destined to save France from her enemies, the British forces who control half the country.

After watching her sister raped and murdered by the English, Joan resolves to visit the Dauphin of France (a horribly miscast John Malkovich), promising to drive back the Brits if he gives her an army. With these soldiers, Joan vows to clear the way to Rheims, thus allowing the Dauphin to be crowned king. Influenced by his mother-in-law, the manipulative Yolande D’Aragon (Faye Dunaway), the Dauphin gives Joan his blessing and she heads off to Orleans where a tremendously dull battle is being waged between the French soldiers, led by the Dauphin’s half-brother Dunois (Tcheky Karyo), and the British army.

Up to this point, the film is almost watchable, but it is undermined by the fact that writers Andrew Birkin and Besson fail to clearly set up either the historical context of the film or Joan’s place in it. The political climate of this era – The Hundred Years’ War, a time when England was laying claim to the French throne – is part of what gave rise to the belief in Joan as France’s savior. Yet, Joan’s status as “savior” lacks depth because we not only fail to get a sense of who she is early on, but we also never see her evolve into the figure who inspires soldiers and creates a cult-like following among the peasants.

All this becomes more problematic when Joan wins the battle at Orleans, only to be abandoned by the Dauphin once he is crowned king. His war is over (he got what he wanted) but, with the English still holding a large portion of France, Joan’s holy crusade goes on. For the Dauphin, however, she has served her purpose and her usefulness is over. (Actually, my guess is that they, like I was, are just fed up with her by this point.) So, the Dauphin allows Joan to be captured by the Burgundians, who are in league with the British. Joan is imprisoned, and the second half of the film follows her trial and the heated debates she has with a figure called The Conscience (Dustin Hoffman), who beats her down emotionally and makes her question her beliefs. Of course, Joan is found guilty of heresy and -- in the stuff of legend -- burned at the stake.

For a film so obviously about faith, The Messenger possesses a noticeable inability to embrace the religious context of the story. The mythology behind “the maid from the forests of Lorraine” -- how Joan became Joan and why the people of France accepted her claims so readily -- is completely glossed over. Likewise, Joan’s visions of Christ (illustrated with the same pyrotechnics Besson brought to “The Fifth Element”) are more effects wizardry than integral character experiences, and Hoffman’s “Old Jesus” feels painfully contrived and false.

And then there’s Milla. Poor, well-meaning Milla. Unfortunately, as hard as she tries and as lovely as she is to look at, she simply doesn’t have the chops for this role. Most of the time, the supermodel comes off as little more than a scared rabbit -- wide-eyed and confused. This is the young woman who managed to force the British to retreat simply by invoking the name of God? Not even close. She gets points for her brave attempt, but this film suffers most from her one-dimensional portrayal of a woman-child who was both a visionary and, quite possibly, a lunatic. In the attempt to make Joan seem “human,” she forgets to make her compelling.

One would think that, being French, Luc Besson could bring a unique and passionate perspective to this story. What The Messenger proves is that being close to one’s subject and one’s star (Besson and Jovovich were married at the time) does not always make for sound or inspired filmmaking. In this case, the result is a film so devoid of spirituality and passion -- and so crippled by bad acting -- that the only “God” here is “God-awful.”