Columbia Pictures, 2006
Tom Hanks
Audrey Tautou
Sir Ian McKellen
Jean Reno
Paul Bettany
Alfred Molina
If you were one of the 40 million¹
people worldwide who read Dan Brown’s book then you
are bound to have an opinion about it, and opinions have
certainly been divided. One thing that many readers were
united in was the thought that the book had a real filmic
quality to it; it was a script ripe for plucking for any
film director. The director who did the plucking was Ron
A Beautiful Mind Howard, who helped to make this
film one of the most eagerly anticipated of the year, and
then some. The first thing to note is that this film is
a faithful adaptation of the book, which is always going
to appease fans, audiences hate nothing more than a complete
re-rendering of a much beloved text when it transposes
to celluloid. Obviously there was a great deal of detail
that did not make it to the movie, but in essence, the
story was all there. I don’t think anyone will disagree
that it was of course the story that made Dan Brown’s
book such a success. It will never be a great work of literature
(au contraire, it had all the literary flair of a takeaway
food menu), but it remains to be a great story, which,
surely, was setting it up to be a great film.
For those posted to penal colonies
on Mars for the last few years, the controversial plot
is as follows: Jacques Sauniere, the Curator of the Louvre
is found murdered in the museum, his dying message, written
in his own blood, being to enlist Harvard symbology professor,
Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to solve the riddle of his murder.
Immediately under police suspicion, Langdon, with the help
of cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou) seek to clear
their own names by finding the cause and culprit of Sauniere’s
murder.
The quest has them unlocking secret codes in Da
Vinci’s works of art, uncovering religious sects
and secret societies that have the potential to tear open
the very foundations of Christianity. The quest for the
truth leads them on the ultimate quest of all; that of
the Holy Grail.
Whatever your religious persuasion, The Da Vinci
Code is a great yarn, but somehow Howard seems to deal
with it in such a heavy handed manner that the story feels lumbering,
quite a seismic blunder for a tale with all the pace of a Walthamstow
whippet. Howard is so cautious of upsetting the very people who wouldn’t
pay to see the film anyway, that it loses any sense of the
dynamism it might have had. It seems to go through the motions
of the story without really telling it. The prolonged explanations
and highlighted editing when Langdon cracks a code (ala John
Nash) is exasperating and clearly aimed at the twelve year
olds in attendance at this 12A certificate picture. Even
the flashbacks to the Crusades to illustrate for example,
the plight of the Knight’s Templar, feel like a Schools’ Channel
dramatisation of Horrible Histories.
Sir Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing, the Holy
Grail expert and Paul Bettany as Silas the albino Opus
Dei monk, are the only real noteworthy performances, but in truth I
didn’t care
much for any of the characters.
As an English Literature student,
reading The Da Vinci Code was a bit of a guilty pleasure.
Watching The Da Vinci Code was heavy on (Catholic?) guilt
but not so forthcoming with pleasure. Throw the self-flagellation
ropes my way Bettany…
