After all the “professional” reviews knocking The Da Vinci Code movie, my 2-year excitement of post-book movie anticipation started to dwindle. Actually, it was over a year ago when George Clooney was tabbed as lead character, Robert Langdon, and was then replaced with Tom Hanks by Director Ron Howard that my excitement started a downhill roll… I’m not a big Tom Hanks fan - not to mention he looks nothing like how Robert Langdon is explicitly described in the book.

One more bit of background… I read the book 2 years ago, loved it, and engulfed myself with other shows, movies, and books regarding the theories expressed in The Da Vinci Code. I had very vivid memories of scenes from the book, vague recollection of deep details, but a real good understanding of the theories expressed.

So, off to the theatre…

Right off the bat, you start to notice differences in scenes from the Book to the Movie… when Langdon is first told of the murder of André Vernet, he’s signing books after a speech rather than being startled in his hotel room. No biggie…

The scenes within the Louvre were close to being painted straight from my memory… it was eerie. Sophie, played by French actress Audrey Tautou, was perfect in my opinion - even though it took about 20 minutes to get used to her strong accent. Or, maybe it just took her several weeks of shooting to get a handle on her English for the film…

I can see some people have trouble with the in-depth dialogue and sometimes confusing topics discussed through the middle of the film, but from what I can tell - everyone I’ve talked to who didn’t read the book had no trouble figuring out the story and what was happening - although I’m sure they’d pick up even more if they read the book or watched the film again. This was a big mark-down from the critics - saying that the movie’s dialouge was long and confusing. It seems the average moviegoer is far more intelligent than a movie critic.

As far as the Christian bashing element of the movie/book, watching the movie for me reconfirmed that people are morons. If you believe in something, that’s great - but why would you A) not have an open mind about something someone else believes MIGHT be true, or B) be afraid that a movie is going to change your view of your beliefs? Maybe your faith isn’t as strong as you thought.

It’s a movie for Pete’s sake - but not for Christ’s sake. ;)
Just because a lot of what’s in the book/movie is backed with actual fact-supported theories, doesn’t mean it’s really true. :|

The debate about this topic will likely go on for eternity, but why that means that alternate sides of a story should be never be told are so far beyond me, I can’t even come close to figuring it out… except for maybe the Vatican really does have so much pull that they even have some power over movie critics, newspaper writers, and other media outlets. I guess that would back up the theory that the Church just wants things to be left alone the way they decided things should be… back in the 300’s.

I’m giving this movie 3.5/4 stars… it’s about the best movie adaptation they could’ve done with such an intricate storyline. Tom Hanks was just okay in my opinion, new-comer Audrey Tautou was great, Ian McKellen was so fun to watch, and the main reason why the movie was great was the same reason the book was great… it expands your mind and makes you think about things in a way that most people never do. I think that’s probably a common theme behind all great pieces of media. At least it should be.