Movie review : Da Vinci Code
May 21st, 2006 . by polyGeek(no spoilers)
I’m shocked that RottenTomatoes.com has a rating of 22% for Da Vinci Code. I read the book a few months ago and loved it. I didn’t think it was great but the story was captivating and I loved the presentation of the puzzles throughout. I have a pretty solid background in mathematics, philosophy and history so you can guess that this is the sort of thing that I would love.
So what’s the grip that everyone has about the movie? It isn’t like this was a bad rendition of Shakespeare or Tolkien. This is a movie adaptation of a pretty good book but that book is light years from being considered high literature.
The acting was decent. With Tom Hanks in the lead everyone was expecting perfection but this just isn’t the role for him. I never thought he was bad, just nothing better than good.
Ian McKellen was pretty damn good. Surprised?
Acting wise the weak link was probably Audrey Tautou. Again, not that she was bad just not anything to write home about. And as a personal grip I wish Ron Howard would have focused more on getting Audrey to enunciate.
One thing that I really liked was that they played fair with the controversial issues. Every time a theory was proposed it was argued, intelligently and fairly.
Overall I would give the movie a B-. I enjoyed the movie but it isn’t anything that I’ll want to see again.
I agree with your review. What a gem of a film. It really was like geniunely liking Satan or something. It pulled together at the end without being cloying or preachy. Thank god - many an ending has ruined an otherwise enjoyable movie by being too sweet or too mean-spirited. This tread the line very well.
And I agree about learning something about people. I too, want to pursue something that I am actually good at, just like the movie protagonist.
That he was superb at what he did made it tolerable for him and at least somewhat understandable, in the end, for us. And a similar urge in all people might go a long way towards explaining/rationalizng the many atrocious acts performed throughout history.