The Da Vinci Code

December 4, 2006

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 149 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Having read The Da Vinci Code several months ago, I figured that I would not have much of a problem reviewing the movie. I really loved the book and I felt that if the movie was anywhere close to it, we’d be looking at 4 stars at a minimum. Well, things aren’t so clear cut.

Throughout my life I have encountered books and movies that carry the theme that there are some secrets man was not meant to know and The Da Vinci Code falls squarely in that category. In case you’ve been catatonic for the past year, this is a murder mystery of sorts but with implications that go FAR beyond the victim and murderer. Implications that, if revealed, could shake the very foundations of Christianity and perhaps even destroy much of it. I don’t know that I believe it could be destroyed so easily, but I’ve been wrong before.

You might wonder what kind of secret could have that effect. Well, how about the idea that Jesus (as in Mary and Joseph’s kid) took a wife by the name of Mary Magdalene and she later bore his child. I have always been a history buff and I usually find anything that blurs the line between history and religious mysticism to be quiet entertaining. As such, the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s marriage and subsequent parenting of a child has always intrigued me. This is mostly due to how the church, if the story is true, had to have taken some very extreme measures to bury the knowledge of this. The legends are out there; stories of the Priory of Scion and the Knights Templar have existed for centuries and, to some extent, their existence has been proven true.

The Da Vinci Code covers all of these tales and weaves a very intricate history complete with secret societies, christian/pagan rituals, mysterious codes, and implications of complicity of some of history’s biggest names.

The movie starts with the murder and gruesome self-mutilation of the curator of The Louvre museum in Paris. The dying man managed to scrawl some strange numbers and phrases on the floor as well as a message to find Dr. Robert Langdon (Hanks). The French police, believing Langdon, a visiting Harvard professor of Symbology, is guilty of the murder, bring him to the Louvre hoping to trick him into a confession or some kind of self-incrimination. Enter Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a cryptologist with the French Judicial Police. She tells Langdon that he is in danger and that the police wish to charge him with the curator’s murder. Why is she doing this? Because she is the dead man’s granddaughter and she knows that Langdon could not have killed him.

From there, the two go on the run while simultaneously trying to figure out who the murderers were and what secret the curator and three others took to their deaths. Several very powerful men and groups enter the fray, each with their own agendas and some not evident until the very end.

Based on past experiences I was expecting big things from director Ron Howard. This project, however, was HUGE by any standard and I wasn’t sure how - or if - he could live up to it. After cogitating on it for a while, I have to say that I don’t think he has. He has done a very good job with certain aspects of the film, but there are a couple of areas that just flat-out didn’t work for me.

First up is the casting. There has been a lot of rumbling out there that Tom Hanks shouldn’t have been cast in this role and I am going to have to agree. He’s a fine actor but, like several other huge stars, Hanks does a very good job of being himself. What I mean by that in this case is that his personality and that of the character of Robert Langdon, don’t mesh well. In the movie, Hanks seems somewhat lost and meek. In the book, Langdon is certainly no macho action hero, but he was certainly a stronger character than Hanks portrays here. In his scenes with Sir Ian McKellen, Hanks perks up, especially during their little arguments, but he is still somewhat flat. Hanks may be a good actor, but Mckellen is head and shoulders above him and it shows here.

Thankfully, the rest of the casting is fantastic. The choice of Tautou to play the part of Sophie Neveu was simply inspired. She’s gorgeous, petite, vulnerable, but still quite fiesty. McKellen, as mentioned above, was fantastic as well. Journeyman actor Jean Reno (who single-handedly made The Professional a fantastic movie) is brought in to be the grizzle french detective, Captain Bezo “The Bull” Fache and he carries his role perfectly. By far the creepiest role I’ve seen in a non-horror movie in a long time went to Paul Bettany, who plays the albino monk Silas. If ever there was a twisted soul, his would be it. From the book I remember descriptions of Silas and his actions that gave me the shivers and I darn near felt them all over again while watching some of his scenes.

However, all these great performances only serve to underscore how weak Hanks’ effort was. It is quite sad when a multi-Academy Award winner gets upstaged in nearly every scene he’s in.

Another area I found lacking was the dialogue. There were several lines in the movie that came out just downright awkward. More than once I almost found myself chuckling and I’m quite sure that Howard and Co. didn’t intend for the moment to be funny. One in particular that I remember had Hanks sounding almost as if he was trying to ad lib a moment of comedy into the scene.

I was, however, glad to see that the story was followed reasonably faithfully, which is quite a feat considering how complex things were portrayed in the book. Howard manages to preserve much of it here without it becoming confusing or numbing. This, to me, is the most important part of the movie. The murder, the flight from law enforcement, the character relationships - these are all just things to keep us from losing our concentration on the real meat of the story which is the quest to unveil staggeringly important things from the coverup of history.

Overall, I think I liked the movie. Enough to give it a strong 3 stars, but the weaknesses in it keep it from getting anything higher. Even so, I would suggest going to the theater to see it if, for no other reason, than to be able to converse about it intelligently since the rest of the world is destined to see it at some point. At the very least, you won’t ever look on the Star of David quite the same way ever again.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 3 Stars, Audrey Tautou, DVD, Drama, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, PG-13, Paul Bettany, Thriller, Tom Hanks