The Da Vinci Code

If you have not yet seen the film, there may be some spoilers in here for you! :O
But then I’m pretty sure millions of you have read the book, and therefore have some idea of what the film is about.

Choosing to see the Da Vinci Code was no way intentional, but when Catherine won free tickets to go see it at our local cinema, I was not one to give up the chance.

Directed by Ron Howard –Of Splash, Willow, Cinderella Man and hosts of other films- Starring Tom Hanks (Robert Langdon), Audrey Tautou (Sophie Neveu), Ian McKellen (Sir Leigh Teabing), Jean Reno (Captain Fache), Paul Bettany (Silas), Alfred Molina (Bishop Aringarosa), Jurgen Prochnow (Andre Vernet) and Jean-Yves Berteloot (Remy Jean).

Well unlike the 60 million people that have bought copies of the book, I am not one of them, and so I write an unbiased view; the film mainly telling the story of Robert Langdon (Hanks) who is caught up in a conspiracy of the whereabouts of the Holy Grail; along the lines being offensive to Christian’s claiming that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child together; this mystery/thriller takes the protagonists across Europe in a final resolution in pretty much the death of the main antagonists, while Robert and Sophie live happily ever after finding out the ‘truth’ that they were searching for.

Aside from the fact it seemed like a rather long film, it has to be said that it is a film for those with patience; no stereotyping here, but after it ended the amount of men complaining how boring it was, was unprecedented. While all of the women thought it was rather good, no problems with its length.

The obvious saving grace for the film was most definitely Ian McKellen’s performance, as the witty old Englishman, otherwise no other performances were shining out, which was surprising seeing as it had quite a few decent actors thrown in there.

The story seemed pretty much like a standard thriller, not exceptionally brilliant, but neither did it come off as awful. There is a lot of press on the film damning it as the worst film this year, but how can you say that with the Date Movie’s and Big Momma’s Houses out there?!

One thing I can say that I felt looked a tad cheesy were the effects showing ‘old’ London etc, and although I know a couple of critics loved these effects, I thought that they looked pretty much ridiculous, especially when Robert and Sophie was walking through them. The same can be said when Robert was working puzzles out, I just thought that it all looked too silly. Otherwise it seems pretty hard to remember what was bad or good of the film, and unfortunately I can only give it a low score and not explain myself, obviously the film did not shine out to myself as exceptional, or perhaps I would remember certain points.

Overall it was a decent thriller, similar to silent hill, it would seem that only the critics have given the film a bad time, whereas normal folk seemed to have liked it.

Cptalbertwesker Rating – Orthodox 6 ½ /10
Undoubtedly the best part of the film was watching the religious discussion had at the end; which was highly entertaining.