ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

alianiara Even as a feminist, I could not stand a movie so ridiculously and awkwardly narrated in a so-called feminist's perspective while all other aspects are neglected. As if had Johanna been born a man, she would have smoothly made her way to the chair of saint peter and become the greatest pope of all time.Johanna was first and foremost a human being, with flaws and limitations, facing obstacles far more complex than that of her female identity.(poverty being one) The men in this movie, were either female-friendly saints or unreasonable prejudiced beasts. No reason were given to why they were such, nor were there any transitions of any kind.I know it is difficult to tell a biography story within two hours, but I still have to say it was not very well timed. Nor did give a good focus on Johanna's character. Yes she was a woman, she wanted to do good in the world, but that is applicable to millions of people in history. As a modern woman I wasn't even born so confident to believe that I am no less than a man, but our heroine was so genius that she didn't need to struggle a bit realize her strength. As a story about a pope, it is so superficial on religious matters that it didn't even bother to quote a few lines that we haven't heard of. no wonder there isn't any religious community seeking trouble about this movie---it's not even worth it.This movie really won't serve as a good example of a feminism movie.

David Hawkridge Didn't know what to expect from a movie called "Pope Joan"! I was pleasantly surprised how good and believable the story was in the first half. I am not going to try and say what the rights and wrongs are of women reaching high office in the church are. For me this was triumph over adversity with understated acting by the lead character. Not sure about the romance side of the film, it didn't seem to add much to the plot there was no real build up to the relationship. The first half of the film was more interesting than the second again the plot seemed to get lost and the characters were not as strong. In saying that I still found myself intrigued by the film. If your wondering if its a film worth watching I think its more than worthwhile. All in all I still enjoyed it even though the plot and characters could have been bit stronger.

Reinhard Clever The story does not appear to have good characterization. People were either 100 Percent good or 100 Percent bad. Real people with extreme rare exception have both good and bad traits. The simple characterizations made the movie too kid like. Also, the events were not really believable. The probability that the girl who the heroine helped when living in squalor, just so happened to be the woman to accidentally find the heroine before she almost died and who later happened to become the bishop of Paris who wrote the book to tell the story is just extremely low. Also the love story that the man who helped the heroine when she was a little girl in Germany later happened to come to Rome at the right time to help her when she was in her greatest danger and to be appointed as the chief of the Swiss Guard is as equally unbelievable.The movie may have been true to the book as its only redeeming feature. For it to be a compelling and interesting historic movie, it would have had to be a lot more nuanced.

sakutu "Pope Joan" is NOT an historical movie, it is a Fantasy movie like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. We live in a very sad times when garbage like this is taken as "historical" when in fact there has never been a "Pope Joan".The legend of "Pope Joan" was a bad attempt of political satire during the Middle Age made to attack the Catholic Church. The myth of "Pope Joan" was totally destroyed by historian David Blondel: the story that she was Pope "from 853 to 855" is so lame considering that from 847 to 855 there was already a Pope: Pope Leone IV. So she couldn't have been Pope during that period. Pope Leone IV died in 855, and after a couple of weeks he was succeeded by Pope Benedetto III.So if you go to watch this movie, keep in mind that you're watching NOT an historical movie, but a fantasy movie. They could've added to the cast Gandalf and Frodo for all that matters, since the whole story of Pope Joan is just a bad and lame satire used in the Middle Age to attack the Catholic Church.