The Da Vinci Code: Movie & DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

A little more than a year ago, while in Paris, it became clear that the buzz inside the Louvre Museum wasn’t just about the art or the architecture, but also about the men and women from Hollywood who were there scouting locations for the new movie “The Da Vinci Code,” a good deal of which would be shot inside the museum.

At that point in 2005, Dan Brown’s remedial novel had been enjoying yet another controversial year atop best-seller lists, well on its way to selling the 40 million copies it has sold to date. With a review of the movie inevitable, I asked one of the guards in the Grande Galerie what he made of all the commotion. Since the French revere movies as one of the great art forms, his disdain wasn't unexpected.

“It’s absurd,” he said. “The book is trash, so the movie will be trash. People come here seeking a code that doesn’t exist. They don’t see what they should be seeing, which is the work. Instead, they look for numbers, letters. It’s ridiculous.”

“What about the code?” I asked.

“Trash."

"And the idea that you can buy the book here at the Louvre?"

"Commerce," he said. "Enjoy your visit."

Turns out the movie isn't trash, at least not entirely, in spite of what Brown's slight, poorly written piece of pop would lead you to believe, not to mention all the negative press that has accompanied the film's release.

Here is a movie that has inspired hunger strikes, picketing, accusations of blasphemy, prayer vigils, endless debates, hype beyond reason. That it was released at the start of the summer blockbuster movie season should give audiences a solid idea of what to expect--a glossy, good-looking, special effects-heavy movie first, a provocative hypothesis on the roots of Christianity second.

The film, which Ron Howard based on Akiva Goldsman’s script, closely follows the meat of the book, opening with Louvre curator Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Paul Marielle) rushing through the dark museum before being shot in the gut by an albino monk (Paul Bettany) with an agenda.

Before Sauniere's stomach acids can poison him, this dying member of the Priory of Sion stumbles around the oddly under-guarded museum and leaves a slew of scrambled clues about the location of the Holy Grail, which if found could lead to a rather damaging, worldwide cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church.

For those who have read the book, you know what that is. For those who haven't or who haven't heard, it involves the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene that would ignite a far-reaching collapse in faith if proved to be true. That's something several people in the movie won't allow to happen, including a corrupt bishop (Alfred Molina) and the aforementioned monk, each of whom belong to the order, Opus Dei.

On the case is Inspector Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), who pulls into his investigation the famed religious symbologist, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), who is in Paris promoting his new book when Fache asks him to come to the Louvre. What Langdon finds is Sauniere, who in his last moments of life also found the strength to carve up his body, stretch out on the Grande Galerie's parquet floor, and strike a pose that recalls one of Da Vinci's master works, thus offering yet another clue in a movie nestled in riddles.

French actress Audrey Tautou ("Amelie") is Sophie Neveu, a police cryptographer and Sauniere's granddaughter who alters the course of the movie when she arrives on the scene and warns Langdon that Fache believes he's the murderer. Together, they escape the museum--itself a miracle, particularly considering the ease with which they do it--and the movie becomes a thriller in which they are chased throughout Paris, London and Scotland. Revelations are just where you expect them to be--literally at every turn.

"The Da Vince Code" isn't a bad movie; the problem is that too often, it isn't a very good movie. The film is too jittery to be static, but also too queasy to allow Hanks or Tautou to generate much of a spark. Here, their characters are boring shells, with Hanks and Tautou delivering their lines as if they are taking all of this way too seriously, which is silly given the shaky handling of the premise and especially because of the dialogue, which varies between the preachy and wooden to downright groan-worthy.

Their mistake is that they approach the movie with the heaviness of a drama, not the slyness of a thriller. There is no sense of enjoyment in their performances, no feeling that they came to have fun, which runs counter to what we expect from Hanks and Tautou. Unfortunately, it seems that all of the theologizing and controversy has sucked the life out of them. They don't light the screen--they dim it.

Not so for Sir Ian McKellen, who gets it just right as Grail scholar Sir Leigh Teabing. McKellen comes to the role with just the right measure of audacity and camp to generate a personality. He is showy and ridiculous, a grinning, leering spectacle whose character needs the assistance of crutches to keep himself upward and mobile.

You know, not unlike the book and the movie.

Grade: C+