THE DA VINCI CODE

Director: Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Opie Taylor)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany

I love a good mystery, always have. In fact, I think it's my favorite genre by some margin. I mostly love the "dark and stormy" night variety, but I'll take anything. I had hopes that the ubiquitous DaVinci Code novel could translate into a very good mystery on screen. The film didn't quite make the "very good" label, but I believe it was a solid effort.

I'm assuming that anyone with internet access reading a blog of film review already knows the general plot of this movie. If you don't, stop reading. Actually, if you don't know I'm vaguely impressed. How did you do it? How did you not hear about this? Do you live in a cave?

Uh, anyway, for those who don't know the plot, but don't mind spoiling it, the story follows a "tweedy" Harvard symbologist (whatever that is) as he becomes embroiled in a murder case in the Louvre. This (of course) leads through a series of brain teasers and fairly mundane action sequences to the revelation that a secret society has been keeping the progeny of Jesus Christ hidden from the Catholic Church for 2000 odd years. No it doesn't really make sense why anyone would need to hide Jesus' kid in the first place. Muhammed seems to have gotten away with procreating, and his religion got big pretty fast. Oh well, I guess it's hard to have a terrible secret revealed in a novel without the secret.

And now on to the hype. Yes, this is a terribly overhyped book. Ridiculously overhyped, in fact. Due to this overcommercialization and discussion of a novel that really isn't nearly as potent as the hypers claim, I fear a bit of a backlash resulting in some overly sensitive reviewing of this film. For my part, I will state categorically that The Da Vinci Code was not a particularly great novel. It was a fun read, but it was also poorly written, with a strangely constructed plot (and not in a good way). Worst of all, though, were the characters. There weren't any. The heroes and villians were some of the blandest and broadest that could be conceived. Despite these problems, however, the book remained a good, solid mystery. The puzzles were fun, the action exciting.

It turns out that the film version was also a good, solid mystery, but with the same problems as the book - lazy character creation, so-so dialogue, and a flawed plot (that nonetheless kept things moving along). I had hoped that some highly talented movie folks could transform the ho-hum characters of the book into far more interesting personas. They didn't. Frankly, the cast was boring. (Perhaps excepting Ian McKellen from this accusation. He seemed to be having a great time in his role.)

Probably the most unfortunate aspect to this story also happens to be what is most compelling about it - the arcane trivia. The plot provides some quaint little explanations for common items like the origins of Friday the 13th being a feared day and the origins of the bars on a soldier's uniform. Like the main plot surrounding Jesus Christ's family tree most of these are fictional as well. Or at least they're not anything like proven fact. It's unfortunate that the story couldn't mix in a bit of better research in its momentous plot. Oh well.

Yes, you heard me right (and I hope I'm not crusing someone's dearly held beliefs here), Jesus did not have children. Or let me rephrase, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to show that he did. I, like most other reviewers, I imagine, am frustrated by the movement that is taking this fictional plot device and turning it into a crusade. Yes, this story is not true. Sorry folks. Okay, I'm not sorry. I'm sorry that people are buying into these sorts of things. However, despite all of this it's still a fine little story, a pretty good mystery even. I'm happy to say that the book doesn't ever claim any of the story is true. Some guy just wrote a novel, and made a fortune doing so. End of story.

P.s. If you're a fan of ancient conspiracy theory and finding the roots of truth in history I highly recommend a couple of Umberto Eco novels. Although perhaps not fast-paced, gripping adventure tales like Dan Brown's book, they are much better works exploring the nature of truth and lies and separating the two in history. If you like this sort of thing, take the time to read Baudolino and Foucault's Pendulum. They are a couple of classic works that cross this same territory.

Standouts: A fun, gripping little adventure/mystery. I enjoyed it throughout.
Blowouts: A lot of flaws throughout: characters, dialogue, plot. People really think this is real?

Grade: B