Last night, I went to see The Da Vinci Code. I've been looking forward to this movie for awhile, since I read the book last year and loved it. Apparently a lot of other people were as well, since it reportedly took in over $224 million this weekend.

The critics haven't been so kind to the film. It has received somewhat mixed reviews. There's a reason for this, of course. Have you heard of the literati? Basically, they're the people who get to decide what we all should spend our days reading, and who also get to dismiss anything they find too "pedestrian". In other words, if the general public likes a book, they can't like it on principle. (Interesting to note that most of these members of the literati have never had a bestselling anything. Most of them are university lit professors. I think we all know the saying that applies here.*) Anyways, this makes it hard for the serious movie critics, who are really the bastard children of the literati, to like the movie. As bastard children, they are always seeking the approval of their fathers.

Don't get me wrong, The Da Vinci Code is not Oscar winning material and it has a few flaws. But some of the critics have shredded it more violently than they did Gigli, for God's sake.

It's an interesting film. Lets face it, the storyline is fascinating, made all the more interesting perhaps, by the Catholic church's almost hysterical reaction to it. Certainly worse things have been said about the church than that Jesus was married and had a child and that they covered it up. Yet they don't seem to get nearly as bent out of shape about it as they have about this film.

Director Ron Howard did a good job of redirecting Dan Brown's potboiler crime novel style into a movie with suspense and flow. Tom Hanks was adequate as Professor Robert Langdon. It wasn't his best performance, but not his worst either (seen Turner and Hooch?). Audrey Tautou, who played Sophie Neveu, was pretty and had suitably sad eyes, and was also adequate for the role. Of course Ian McKellan almost completely stole the show as Sir Leigh Teabing, seconded only by the surprising Paul Bettany as Silas, the albino monk. They also stayed very true to the book, gently sanitizing it in only a few necessary places and leaving the story mostly intact. All in all, it was a good, solid film in my opinion. Certainly worth seeing in the theater and worthy of a 7 out of 10 on the movie mojo scale.

Categories: Movies