a simple code?

By Furious George

It’s ironic that the guy who is writing book reviews might be the only person in America not to have read THE DA VINCI CODE (A little too ironic? Yeah I really do think). This does give me a more interesting take on the movie however. I did not have the expectations; in fact I had little interest in seeing it until I heard the cast list and director.

I saw the movie on opening weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit. It is the quintessential summer movie in just the way the book is the perfect airplane read. Though it did drag a bit at the end, the pacing was quick and kept me in my seat. The performances were exactly what you would expect. Tom Hanks was the detective/professor, calm and unflappable despite the constant threat of police, betrayal, and some sort of super-albino. Audrey Tautou is every bit as charming as you would expect, though not very believable as a police woman. Every performance was solid, as was the directing. I don’t consider Ron Howard to be a genius by any means but his is always proficient. DA VINCI CODE is no different.

As for the plot, I was not impressed. I found it very predictable. The “big surprise” is so heavily foreshadowed that you would have had to be one of the original cast members of DELIVERANCE to miss it. I guess the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of detail. Everything I heard about the book bragged about the incredible amount of research and the Dan Brown put into it. Little of this showed up on screen. Some of the history was there but little about the art made it into the film.

I also failed to find the church sinister. It was clearly set up to “creep” people out but it failed to do so. I don’t know if Silas (played by Paul Bettany) was an albino with mysterious superpowers in the book but I found the character slightly ridiculous. I found the self flagellation scenes superfluous and his entire back story seemed to be thrown in there for no good reason at all. It was not scary! If you want to frighten me show me something real. Show me men with rock solid convictions and good intentions doing horrible things. That would have been more sinister on camera that a stereotypical evil bishop with his albino sidekick.

Overall, as a summer movie, THE DA VINCI CODE is a fun flick. It’s light and entertaining but on no level impressive. I’m glad I saw it but what little desire I have to read the book has fled. In fact of you want the world’s biggest conspiracy, in my opinion it’s the fact that over 40 million people read this story then all decided to tell the rest of us that it was genius.

(There are things about this review that I agree with, but for the most part I found the DA VINCE CODE to not be a good movie at all. In the next few days I plan to write a review of my own, but thanks again to Furious George for his contribution. - HUMBY)