The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code is the big movie. The hype that we have been seeing for months and that audiences have waited more than a year for has culminated into a film that does not live up to its epic buildup. Tom Hanks and Ron Howard’s big screen adaptation of the Dan Brown novel is a meandering and ponderous film with bits of action and a theology lesson besides. Considering how big the novel has been it seems unrealistic to expect so much from a film, but the expectations are there. As a result the film will have one of the biggest opening weekends in history, and be soundly rejected by the critics.

In general The Da Vinci Code is not a bad movie. Yes it is slow in parts, but it is an entertaining adventure none-the-less. But it cannot live up to the hype that surrounds it. The biggest problem is not Tom Hanks’ greasy floppy hair, though what were they thinking? It is not the lack of chemistry between the two leads, especially since there wasn’t much there in the book either. The problem with the film The Da Vinci Code is the lack of proper editing and having a narrative free-hand to take liberties with the material in order to craft a good movie out of a good book. The Harry Potter franchise struggled with this very issue. The first two films were good but they were so tied to the exact flow of the books that the movies were uninspired. It was not until the books got longer and choices had to be made about which parts to keep and which to remove that the shackles were loosed and the real cinematic story could flow. There is no better example of cinematic creative license with literary classics than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Peter Jackson, Phillipa Boyens, took the immense Tolkien tomes and hashed through them to distill three distinct and engrossing films. Now literary fans might be scandalized by the material that is overlooked or the liberties that are taken with some of the characters, but done correctly the changes make the film stronger and allow it to adhere to the original spirit of the books if not its letter.

The Dan Brown novel was a made for movie story like a John Grisham or Michael Creighton book. It includes specifically atmospheric settings heavy with their own importance, in this case religious history in art and literature. The treasure hunt narrative is a simple one: the characters need to merely race from one clue to the next deciphering them and moving step by step closer to their reward. Looking at the recent film National Treasure I am reminded how this can be done in an astonishing and entertaining way without getting weighed down on the path. The Da Vinci Code tries to dash from point A to point B but it gets bogged down in history lessons spending too much time flashing back and showing what too many people are doing and thinking and reacting at any given time. It is easiest if there are simply three groups, the treasure hunters, the bad guys, and the police pursuing both. Here since the bad guy is masked in secrecy there are too many intermediaries to count and so many threads to follow that some get lost. On the plus side, Ron Howard does offer some beautiful and sinister locations in the Louvre and Paris at night and London during the day.

The casting was not the coup that it sounded to be. Hanks seems comfortable as Robert Langdon but he doesn’t do much but race from one clue to the next. Audrey Tautou seems out of her league as the leading lady constantly struggling to keep up. Ian McKellan, Alfred Molina, and especially Paul Bettany do make considerable impact in their small roles of people who come into the chase for the grail. Jean Reno should of course play every French police chief in every movie for the rest of his life. He was born to play the part and it is only nice to see that occasionally he is offered some other sort of role.

The film is still professionally acted, entertaining, and tolerably paced, until the last 30 minutes. The filmmakers ruin the film, and the film going experience, by delivering a multi-tiered, overly drawn-out series of finales that ruin the flow of the film and leave what could have been a satisfying film with an unsatisfying tedious ending. Here the editor could have worked his magic, cutting the scenes so that they flow together and wind down the action. Instead he creeps along in the first ending prolonging a tension that simply isn’t there for any of the millions who have already read the book. Then it pauses for a self-pontificating speech by Hanks’ Robert Langdon that not only has no equivalent in the book but also has no purpose in the film. The last of the finales is possibly the most satisfying only because it is the last of the film not necessarily because it succinctly ends the hero’s journey.

Of course all of that being said The Da Vinci Code wasn’t the greatest book to begin with. The Da Vinci Code has mediocre writing with an interesting plot about a rather controversial subject. It wasn’t even the greatest book by Dan Brown as anyone who has read Angels & Demons could attest. This is in large part because the climax of Angels & Demons is so much more compelling. Hopefully when it gets the big screen treatment this story go a little better. That said: I can’t wait to see, not a longer director’s cut but a shorter editors cut of The Da Vinci Code. I’m sure that there is a good movie hidden in there somewhere, some one just needs to reveal it.

The Da Vinci Code may rank as one of the biggest disappointments of the summer because expectations were so high for this film and it just does not deliver an inspired movie going experience. Instead the film is poorly paced leading to significant audience fidgeting and the feeling that the air of suspense and mystery and expectation was left behind somewhere in the pages of the book. At best hopefully the film inspires those few thousand who haven’t read The Da Vinci Code yet to pick it up and see what all of the initial fuss was about.