The Da Vinci Code (2006)
2/5
The Da Vinci Code is a faithful adaptation of a trashy airplane novel. Sure, it works, but at what level? The plot follows Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou as they try to uncover the mystery surrounding Tautou's grandfather's death in the Louvre. They soon realize that it is part of a far greater mystery involving the Holy Grail, the Priory of Scion, and Opus Dei. For those that care or know little about religion, this movie will surely bore you, as 90% of the time they are solving puzzles relating to ancient Christian cover-ups and lies. For those that hate the French, this movie will surely aggravate you, as 50% of it is in French. But for the rest, you might find it acceptable. After all, Hanks and Tautou are always excellent, and do their best with the somewhat lacking source material. While Howard's directing was expectedly subpar, it did provide some level of entertainment, albeit frustrating at some points.
After Howard and his incessant stylized flashbacks, mediocre cinematography, and terrible editing, the script was easily the next worst part about this movie. The writers were so faithful to the book that they decided to keep in all the bad parts. Novels must be adapted to work on the screen, not simply converted to the proper format. The first main problem is the pacing of the story. The book has about five different endings, which is bad enough in book form, but in movie form it just makes the last half hour drag painfully on and on and on. The second main problem is the atrocious dialogue. The plot elements themselves were quite silly and far-fetched, but interesting nonetheless. Still, I thought I would hate the movie based on all the negative reviews and anecdotal evidence I had heard about it, but I was surprised at how captivating it was. At least, how captivating it was late at night while simultaneously talking to friends online. I wouldn't go out of your way to check this out, but if you were excited about it at one point in your life, it might not hurt to catch it on TV.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382625/
1 comments:
So maybe for the first time in my life I excitedly awaited the movie adaptation of The daVinci Code, having read the book and loving it.
I bough the movie poster, I read up online of how it was made, the works... but sadly I got exactly what I maybe everyone had asked for, a page for page recreation of the novel that was so page turning to read but as you said, drawn out way too long on screen.
Howard got criticized for not changing things, yet he would've gotten just as lambasted if he did, poor thing...
Hanks proved too old and stuffy for the role of the intelligent explorer, he needed just a little more edge, think Nicolas Cage in National Treasure, which came out before The daVinci code movie, and pretty much as the same idea but in America, yet was able to transfer the suspense and mystery so much better.
I agree with your 2 :)
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