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The Da Vinci Code
Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou
Director: Ron Howard
Sony Pictures
Sometimes a movement starts and it just gains momentum. The movement to hate The Da Vinci Code seemingly started at Cannes with booing and hissing from the cinemaphiles there and the movie has been steadily pummeled by mainstream critics ever since. Add to that the fall out from the Catholic Church, Opus Dei and a host of other interested parties who have an axe to grind over a novel’s interpretation of historical events (both fictional and real) and you have a movie that was already up against great odds.
Let’s start with the basics. The Da Vinci Code is very faithful to the book. The direction is at times pedestrian, but then again the book is at times pedestrian. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou do good work with a good story and Ian McKellen does simply brilliant work with a good story. There isn’t a whole lot of chemistry between Hanks as Robert Langdon and Tautou as Sophie Neveu which on the one hand is a good thing since they never really come together on the other hand in the novel there always seemed to be a little chemistry between them.
If you have already read the book you will enjoy the movie but not nearly as much as you will enjoy it if you haven’t read the book. This is definitely one of those cases where the book exceeds the movie (which is often the case). Still the movie is worth the price of admission and it is an enjoyable two and a half hours.