Movie Details
| Title: | The Da Vinci Code | |
| Director: | Ron Howard | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.22.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (11)
- Angels & Demons
- Apollo 13
- Cinderella Man
- Edtv
- Frost/Nixon
- Grand Theft Auto
- Inferno
- Made in America
- Night Shift
- Rush
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.22.06 | Cinemark Pflugerville | hmmm... well OK. First of all, I think it's funny that when National Treasure came out everyone said it was a Da Vinci Code ripoff but now that this movie is finally out it's a National Treasure rip-off. Secondly, I think I want to state that I liked the book more for how fast of a read it was and all of the little Paris and Painting-y descriptions in the book than anything regarding the actual plot. So for me, watching this movie... it's like when I read it it went too fast for me to worry about it all making perfect sense but when I see it up on the screen all laid out for me It all seems... really ridiculous. So this guy is shot in the gut... better hurry and scrawl all of these encoded messages all over the place - anagrams that would take me like an hour to work out - and arranges himself to die just so all spread eagled and whatnot. Sure the movie explains it away but it's answered with an equivalent of the force in Star Wars... sure he was a genius at all that because that was like, his specialty. And she's good at it too because she was brought up that way... It just leaves the realm of reality for me very early on. So from there it's just an adventure story. it's no longer The Da Vinci code: bestseller with all-star cast and the safest bet to make money in town... So I can sort of see where the National Treasure thing comes back in. There's nothing in here so great or amazing to set it above National Treasure at all... at least not for me. So I always hated the albino in the book. I have no clue why he's an albino (aside from paying off the ghost/angel comparisons) and didn't like any of the self-flagellation stuff from the get-go so it's no surprise I found it boring in the movie... but I am a little surprised that I didn't like Hanks as Robert Langdon as much as I thought I would. I'm a bit fan of intellectual protagonists... people that can think out solutions rather than punch their way to victory... and I suppose I'm a fan of them because they are much harder to right and perform... but here was a case (in the book at least) where both are done pretty well. In the movie though... I don't know, he seems flat. And the dialogue they give him doesn't help any... with all of these visual effects and clever techniques to show him working out anagrams or visualizing statues, you'd think you wouldn't need him to speak random thoughts all the time... recapping what the dozing audience might've missed, restating what he's doing all the time. It was to the point where, again, it felt unrealistic to me. So, like everyone else, I was kind of underwhelmed by the movie and thought Ian McKellan was the best part. I didn't hate the movie, didn't dislike the movie... i was never really super bored while watching it, but it didn't set my heart on fire either. Won't pick it up on DVD. In many ways I think it's a lot like the book though. It's cerebral without ever being challenging, interesting without ever being educational (yes everybody, this is fiction); the only difference is the movie lacks that page-turning excitement that made the book such a fun read. Sure, that means, for people like me, the one good thing about it was taken away... but still. It does make me sad though how despite nearly every review being at least lukewarm it still made so much money. It says to me that film criticism really is dead... it's just people going through the motions to see movies for free now as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's because the movie deals with Christianity so everybody discredits all the reviews for being intentionally inflammatory (definitely a possibility. i know i did) or maybe you just can't stop everyone that read the book from seeing the movie but still.. at what point do you take the critics' word for it? So oh well. It's out, I've seen it, moving on. |
