Movie Review: "The Da Vinci Code"

(off topic but I went to see Casino Royale again yesterday, even better the second time around *VBG*)

I'm sure everyone knows the controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code. I won't go into detail here about it. I read the book more out of curiosity due to the buzz surrounding it. I think it had been Newsweek or Time that had said if you were one of the last 3 people that hadn't the book yet, you'd only need 3 days top to finish it. I finished it in 2. This isn't a book review so I won't go into the book, but I'll just say from a literature perspective, fascinating read, suspenseful, easily addictive.

When I finally watched the movie on DVD, I was pretty sure I knew what to expect. I know many people had protested the movie, but I know the TRUTH so I knew I wouldn't be in any danger of being deceived. Plus Ron Howard always puts out a good movie, and Tom Hanks is one of today's great actors.

After watching the movie, my reaction was......meh. I supposed if you hadn't read the book, it would be a good suspense movie. Lots of action, very gory for a PG13 movie. I liked Tom Hanks as Langdon, Ian McKellum was a good choice as Teabing, and I don't really know any other French actresses so I suppose Audrey Tatou was a good Sophie. I just felt the last quarter of the movie fell flat. Langdon didn't do much as he did in the book. I felt the movie differed from the book a great deal. The biggest difference in my opinion was Tom Hanks' portrayal of Robert Langdon. In the book, Langdon is very into and knowledgable of the gnostic gospels, the female religions aspects and the whole religious side of things. He accepts everything as fact and believes it. In the movie, he is more of a skeptic, he knows the facts but he doesn't really believe them. He scoffs at Teabing's attempts to explain the Last Supper painting to Sophie. And what was with the ending? It was totally different from the book which I have heard many people complain about.

So as for the movie itself, I'd give it 3 stars. As for the Da Vinci Code itself, I think it's bunk but I still think finding out all those theories are very interesting. My pastor did a sermon series about the whole Da Vinci Code ordeal (it's called Decoding DaVinci, near the bottom of the page). Very interesting stuff. I wouldn't ban this film, but if you do get offended by this material I wouldn't suggest watching the movie. Otherwise, it's an ok movie, just hope that you know the real TRUTH instead.