The Da Vinci Code (2006) - Movie Details

Robert Langdon, a respected historian, finds himself the target of a murder investigation when a colleague is found shot to death in the Louvre. As he and the daughter of the murdered man elude police and the sinister man behind the killing, they begin to uncover the shocking truth, which, if revealed, could rattle the very foundations of Christianity....

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Movie Review

To say I was excited for "The Da Vinci Code" is like saying I'd like to see Natalie Portman naked - it goes without saying. The book is exciting and thought-provoking, and the movie is one of the most anticipated films of the year. It has a great cast and a good director - what possibly could go wrong? Full movie review »

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Comments

Anonymous says:

December 7, 2006

this film is so good whoever dissed this movie should be hung. dan brown made a very good book i liked it and the movie is the same and i cant wait for angels and demons to come out either

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Anonymous says:

October 29, 2006

this film was fucking bullshit

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Anonymous says:

June 6, 2006

If I believed the critics, The DaVinci Code is one of the worst disappointments ever, maybe even (judging from the reaction of the film snobs at Cannes) one of the worst movies ever. Fortunately, I always take the critics under advisement and go see a film for myself as I did in the case of The DaVinci Code. I went, I saw it, I was pleasantly surprised.

Sure, Tom Hanks and, especially, Audrey Tautou have done better. Ms. Tautou traded in her finely nuanced performances that charcterized Amelie and The Long Goodbye for her sledge hammer approach in this movie--please, Ms. Tautou deliver your lines with a little less EM-pha-sis!!!! Please! And, sure, it was Star Wars acting and Star Wars script writing (appropriate for Star Wars, which is a cinematic comic book, but not so appropriate in this film). Moreover, the Sith-like Silas could have as easily been confused with a confederate of Darth Vadar's galactic conspiracy. So I concede to the critics on some of their assessment of the acting and script.

Yet, fully expecting a clunker, I was, instead, suprisingly engaged by the film. The pacing, to me, was just right for the level of slowly unfolding intrigue the story presented and Ron Howard managed to cram a lot of the book into the film without making me feel like it was being crammed down my throat--he managed that delicate balance farily well. The dream-like flashbacks into the past of the characters and into church history, almost universally panned by the critics, were an effective vehicle for conveying this extensive background. Granted, much of the so-called church history is balderdash, but this is, after all, fiction--and the original author Dan Brown takes liberty with history to make his point about surpression of the feminine by the early Church and, later, by the Catholic Church, a supression that, historically, took on brutal form (proving once again that, while God is good, religion is evil). Such supression is a historical fact, even if we are not always clear on why it actually occurred, and even if Dan Brown's version on why it occurred is highly questionable. But the movie makes it seem plausible that history could have unfolded in this way, even if it didn't.
(As an aside, for me, one of the most uncontroversial parts of the film and the novel is the idea that Jesus was married--he very likely was since it was extremely rare for a Jewish man, especially of his family background and standing in the community, not to be married--I just doubt he was married to Mary Magdalene, whoever she was).

As story-telling, the film succeeds very well. Even Hanks and Tautou settle into their roles and their acting, while never great, improves as the film goes on. While, sometimes the camera jerked around a little too much for my tastes, the cinematography was mostly quite appealing (as were the settings) and carried the story along. The result, on balance, was a satisfying and worthwhile afternoon at the movies.

This is the case of a movie in which the whole was greater than the sum of the parts (the very opposite of the over-rated Brokeback Mountain, in which the sum of the parts was greater than the whole). I was never bored. The 160 minutes of playing time seemed to pass in half that time. In short, this is a movie worth seeing in the theaters rather than waiting for the DVD. So ignore the critics. See it for yourselves. Chances are you will like it better than you thought you would.

Rating:

Three stars (* * *) out of four.

Grade:
B+

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Anonymous says:

June 2, 2006

To the webmaster - you took the words right out of my mouth. I also read the book two years ago and was quite disappointed by the movie. I cannot believe that Dan Brown would have watched this move and somehow believed that it was the best interpretation of his amazing novel. The movie was uninspiring and unconvincing. It was dull and I actually DID fall asleep (having waited to catch the 10:30pm showtime on Friday night didn't exactly help, but a really good movie could easily have kept me awake).

Tom Hanks was horrible and his speech was indeed too matter-of-fact. The character of Silas was supposed to be a red-eyed beast of an albino and his character was just a fraction of the depiction in the novel.

There was no character development (which was pivotal to understanding the perspectives of all those involved) and even the scenes depicting Silas' past were unintelligible to anyone who had not read the book.

I was utterly disappointed.

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Anonymous says:

May 22, 2006

This movie was a masterpeice...

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