What's Wrong With This Picture? (The Da Vinci Code (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	The Da Vinci Code (DVD)
Date:	28/05/06 (393 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong story, based on a massively successful best-seller

Disadvantages: It's a BAD movie

When a movie gets the kind of hype that “The Da Vinci Code” got in the run up to its release then it needs to go some to get the kind of credit that most people anticipate. Whether you’ve read the multi-million selling book by the author Dan Brown should be irrelevant when it comes to a stand-alone movie depiction but, of course, life is never as easy as that and comparisons abound as you would probably expect.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is a Harvard symbologist working in Paris. Whilst working he receives an urgent late-night phone call asking for his help. It appears that the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Discovering a mysterious cipher at the murder scene, Langdon subsequently solves it leading him on a trail of further clues all wrapped around the works of Da Vinci. Linking up with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), he learns that the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion – a mysterious secret society. As the plot (and clues) unravels, Langdon and Neveu find themselves in the middle of a spider’s web of intrigue, flanked by the Opus Dei (a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic organisation), the Priory of Sion and yet more shadowy figures whose allegiance is yet to be determined. With time running out and relentlessly pursued through Paris and London on the trail of the Code, Langdon finds himself fighting for his life whilst coming to terms with the greatest conspiracy since the time of Christ.

At first glance, all the ingredients are there for a successful blockbuster. A stellar cast, spectacular sets and a massively successful story all come together to make a monumental blockbuster a la Spielberg in his pomp. Moreover, with Ron Howard in the director’s chair and a proven track record including the carefully crafted “A Beautiful Mind” then we can’t possibly drive this baby too close to the edge, surely? Sadly, that’s just what happens.

First of all, what works well? The settings are beautiful. With filming locations as diverse as Belvoir Castle to Malta, from Paris to Winchester Cathedral in Winchester, the movie does capture a roaming feel to it that gives it the breadth it craves. With so many settings based in ancient churches and musty old mansion houses, that leather-bound First Edition feel is captured in the big budget, don’t spare the horses grand manner and makes the movie great to look at. I particularly liked the closing scene in Paris that finally links everything together but I’ll let you discover that one for yourself.

With yet another take on the presently red-hot, Holy Grail theme then at least “The Da Vinci Code” takes a refreshingly different route. The audience will enjoy the unravelling of the “greatest cover up on Earth” although the sinister attempts by the clergy to keep the cork in the bottle looks reminiscent of scenes straight from The Exorcist movies. Alfred Molina as Bishop Aringarosa looks suitably menacing as the central, driving force for the Catholic cover up and any parallels with the clergy from "Father Ted" should be put strictly to the back of one's mind. To be fair, Molina puts in a descent performance and the whole Catholic priest piece is neatly done with convincing sets and some of the more convincingly lines in the movie (although nearly undone by the classic line from McKellan "He who controls the keys to Heaven rules the world" as he cackles maniacally)

I like Tom Hanks. I like Tom Hanks because he’s a personable, charming actor. He was great in “The Terminal”, irreplaceable as Woody The Cowboy's voice-over in “Toy Story” and effervescent in “Big”. As a studious, dour lecturer fighting for his life, he is ponderous and unconvincing. I know Hanks can do the serious stuff; I’ve seen “Philadelphia” after all so maybe it’s the predictable sequences of find clue – decipher clue – chase sequence – find another clue etc that bogs his character down in one-dimensional monologues. I’m really not sure but I do know that it’s far from Hanks at his best.

Tautou supports Hanks as best she can although any love interest is neatly suppressed by the screenplay and maybe that’s the intention given the closing scenes. Where the screenplay misfires in a big way is, despite the hefty run time of 149 minutes, the main characters never get the chance to pause and consider the ludicrous nature of everything that’s going on around them. After all, one minute Langdon’s giving another boring lecture to an equally bored audience, the next he is being chased around Europe by all manner of bizarre characters even including the police who are as implicated as the rest of ‘em through the generally convincing Jean Reno as Captain Fache. It’s this flagrant lack of character development that lets the film down most of all with the principle leads drowned in a plot straining under the complexity of its own conspiracy.

The real curiosities are Ian McKellan and Paul Bettany. Mckellan plays Sir Leigh Teabing, a friend and associate of our hero, Langdon. Helping him to discover the hidden vagaries of the various works of the artist, Da Vinci, McKellan struts and booms like a lead in a Shakespeare play. Perhaps the funniest scene of all is where he manages to smuggle the two from his plane and into a car as it lands in an airfield. Looking like one of those cut and paste flashbacks from “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, Mckellan is equally undermined by the, at times, comical scripting although he does his very best to carry some credibility using all of his acting experience to bear.

Bettany is pure theatre. Playing a monk who doubles as an assassin, his wide-eyed, face scarred intensity never gets beyond luke –warm and the barest of script lines is not made up for in any way by his occasional self-flagellation (although I’m sure some of the audience will have appreciated his religious masochism aka bondage). Fresh from recent success with “Firewall” and “Wimbledon”, Bettany can seemingly do no wrong but here he gets the craziest of roles and even his most intense of depictions is not enough to stop it sliding into unintentional, camp carry-on.

With a movie like this then the story is everything and the finale crucial. The bends and turns in the metaphorical road are in the grandest of manners leading to the final straight (if you can forgive the analogy) as the ultimate conclusion explodes at the finish line. Howard pulls the plot strands together all in time for tea but if you’ve guessed the plot by now then that’s going to put a dampener on things. I, for one, had guessed long before the denouement but then I’m a clever old thing; I suspect many others did too.

"The Da Vinci Code" will make millions for its producers. It has all the ingredients, including the most reverential of themes, that will pack ‘em in like sardines in those most devout of countries as well as everywhere else. Sadly, the movie is a clumsy jumble of clipped scenes that pass you by, flash backs that mean little and a range of hammy acting that could drown a bacon factory. At certificate 12A and with scenes cut to give it as wide an audience as possible, my 10-year-old lad enjoyed it although my teenage daughter and somewhat older wife simply yawned although qualified that by saying it was “good”. With that stretch of the facial muscles and unconvincing verdict, you probably have it in a nutshell.

Thanks for reading

Mara

“The Da Vinci Code” is on general release across the UK.

Summary: Overview of movie