The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code

Directed by Ron Howard
Written by Akiva Goldsman
Starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Paul Bettany, and Jean Reno



Okay. It's late. I'm sleepy. Let me summarize.

The story, based on Dan Brown's book, is about

1) Robert Langdon (Hanks) and Sophie (Tatou) going round and round looking for the Holy Grail.

2) The story has a big fat emphasis on the sacred feminine, and (not a spoiler by now) that Jesus Christ was not immortal, and was married.

3) A lot of other bullsh*t (forgive the language)

*

The movie is, in my humble opinion.

1) The flashback/deciphering visuals was fantastic, and almost psychotic. Reminds me of Ron Howard's earlier films, of which all deployed/employed the same grainy, code wrenching, flashback, chop chop editing, moment of truth scenes, like A Beautiful Mind (in fact, all of Langdon's deciphering scenes are rip-offs from A Beautiful Mind), and all the Cindy Man flashbacks/reenactments. But cool, nonetheless.

2) Hans Zimmer rocks. Mostly anyway

3) Now, when the cinema goes "ahahahaha" at the whole Jesus' bloodline thing, it really reflects on how serious the masses take The Da Vinci Code. I am encouraged.

4) The movie is 10% of the book's controversies. This is so not because of the film's content, but the pace of it. It moves so quickly I couldn't catch the codes more than half the time. If I never read the book, I'd be lost after 2 minutes of the show.

But all that being said.

Roger Ebert's line works, "Ron Howard is a better filmmaker than Dan Brown is a novelist"

I almost completely agree.

I think it's a case of hiring the wrong director to save a bad book. Ronny is known for his slow tempo kick butt shows (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cindy Man, etc can make a person fall asleep if not careful), and here he is trying to make a trashy American novel. Oh well. Money is money.

Rating: D
(imagine if I wrote a book review what would the rating be?)