The Da Vinci Code (USA) (Columbia Pictures) (2006) **Year: 2006iMDB
Director: Ron Howard Cast: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno
Ron Howard (Cinderella Man, A Beautiful Mind) teams up with his favorite collaborator, Akiva Goldsman, and adapts one of the most popular books of the last decade - Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. With a strong, charismatic cast and a world premiere at the Cannes Festival, the movie was destined to be great, however... not all destinies are meant to be fulfilled.
Personally, I am not very surprised, since I never quite understood the success of the book to begin with. Conspiracy theory books with masonic and para-clerical organizations have been written for a long time. The tv show Alias is providing comparable plots almost on an episode by episode basis. Thus being said, I was never bored watching the movie, and I found it quietly engaging despite the fact that professor Langdon's (Hanks) deductions appear to be more random than the result of deep knowledge, and that every viewer correctly predicts the discovery that our main characters only stumble upon at the very end.
Instead of being shrouded in mystery and conspiration the movie is rather awkward as the character's motivations are barely penciled. While I had every intention of liking this movie, it ended up being just a bland experience.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on May 29, 2006 11:46 AM | TrackBack