THE DA VINCI CODE
* out of *****

Genre
Mystery
Religion
Thriller

2006
Directed by
Ron Howard
Written by
Akiva Goldsman (screenplay)
Dan Brown (novel)
Cast
Tom Hanks .... Robert Langdon
Audrey Tautou .... Sophie Neveu
Ian McKellen .... Sir Leigh Teabing
Jean Reno .... Captain Fache
Paul Bettany .... Silas
Alfred Molina .... Bishop Aringarosa
Jürgen Prochnow .... André Vernet
Jean-Yves Berteloot .... Remy Jean
Etienne Chicot .... Lt. Collet
Jean-Pierre Marielle .... Jacques Sauniere

Ever heard the storytelling maxim “Show don’t tell”? If you want to see what happens when this isn’t heeded go and see The Da Vinci Code. For around two-and-a-half hours people stand around telling each other (i.e. us) stuff. The whole movie is essentially exposition. Revelations come and go without making an impact, because they’re just more yapping. The movie is so boring, people were falling asleep after half an hour, and this was a 7pm session! I wasn’t surprised that this movie was irredeemable crap, it’s based on irredeemable crap and Akiva Goldsman is hardly going to elevate anything.

Not much to say about a screen  shot like this.

You no doubt know that The Da Vinci Code is about a Catholic conspiracy, and the facts of it are coded into Da Vinci’s paintings. If you really want to know what the whole story is about then watch one of the countless TV specials on the subject. Those documentaries and the movie are largely the same, with power point presentations, academic lectures, and computer-manipulated Da Vinci paintings. But in The Da Vinci Code movie the hosts will take a break every now and then to chase each other around a bit. But don’t worry, when they reach their next destination they’ll be sure to stop and talk some more.

The primary problem with all this talking is that our two heroes are agonisingly boring. If you invited them over to your house for dinner you’d be giving your spouse/partner those down-in-the-trenches-together looks. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou are good actors. But there’s nothing for them to act so they seem only half interested in what’s going on around them. Oh yeah, Robert Langdon is claustrophobic since he fell down a well as a kid, that’s about it. And Tautou is an attractive French woman, that’s all the character you need! These are the sort of characters who don't exist in the real world, they'll tell you about their traumatic life events after you’ve known them for half an hour, i.e “When I was seven I fell in a well”. And that is poor man's character development, which results in the most boring people-on-the-lam that I can think of (not lovers, you can’t deliver exposition while making out).

It's behind you.

They are primarily there to deliver exposition to each other. When that runs out they go see a British academic, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who is a breath of fresh air in comparison to what’s gone on before, but is really just a badly written stock character. Teabing and Langdon then talk, complete with an interactive display of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Neveu is there to move the exposition along by saying things like “Why?” and “I don’t understand”.

One of Teabing’s big pieces of proof is in The Last Supper (as if Da Vinci was at that particular fondue party). Da Vinci not only did the painting but was apparently the head of a society that held a secret so explosive it would tear the church apart. Teabing is saying that because a guy who was the head of a secret society painted a picture which hinted at the information his secret society held, then it must be true. That’s like saying Dianetics corroborates Scientology. It’s like an academic citing their own papers. Hell, I’m going to do it too:

As Mandroid3000 showed in his review of 2005, The Da Vinci Code is utter ball dust.¹

You could go through a million things in the film and say, “that’s dumb”, “that’s lame”, and “I fell asleep”. Did anyone involved in this film see Tim Roth’s gut shot in Reservoir Dogs and believe that a guy could set up the mathlympics after being plugged in the intestines? Did we really need to get a little flashback about how people can get off a plane and into a car? But, enough of that. I will now move on, because this movie is a “thriller”. An exciting “adventure”. The world is at stake. This is faith-shattering stuff. There will be blood in the halls of power. And even though Langdon and Neveu aren’t that worried about it, maybe I will be.

Well, here we are again.

In the book there was almost no action, and nothing really thrilling happened. Some of the ways that Ron Howard tries to cover this up are rather humorous. Like he’ll have police cars driving, but they’ll drive over a curb and bounce a little bit. It makes story sense: the world is at stake, you damn well better not be thinking about your suspension. Some police cars do a three man weave which looked better than any that my high school basketball team ever did, but still, it’s not that impressive. Tautou backs a car between garbage trucks, which gave everyone a few chuckles (“Oh, how quaint” we all said).

OK, action is nonexistent. But being a thriller, how about some villains that will give us nightmares? There’s the scary albino (stock character alert!), Silas, who’s kind of mean, and whips himself a bit, but he gets felled in a rather embarrassing manner for a guy who’s supposed to be the heavy of the piece. He may give me nightmares about getting sunburnt, but it’s winter here so probably he won’t.

There’s a guy who runs a bank vault, whose actions baffled everyone. There’s a scene in the back of an armoured truck (where Langdon is getting claustrophobic and Neveu seriosuly (seriously!) rubs his temples) that is so obviously there because people have been talking for a year of the movie and someone needs to pull out a gun. The vault guy then appears to get knocked out by either hitting himself in the head with a door, or because Tom Hanks lumbers like a sleepy bear and eases it into his forehead. As Langdon and Neveu drive away the vault guy glares after then, and the only thing missing was him shaking his fist and yelling “LANGDON!!!!” after them like Super Ninja.

There are some other villains. A guy who goes to ecumenical councils and not much else. And a guy who they escape from because a bird flies past his head (really). There’s also a cop who’s chasing them like a mad dog (maybe more like a peeved cat) because of his religious affiliation, or something. By the time that one was revealed I’d started watching the exit sign instead.

Right, then. This movie bites, but what is its place in the world of things that bite? Here is a handy table to help you calibrate its level of suckness:

 
This could have been the this decade’s Showgirls. Someone could make a more fast paced edit that would be a nice double bill with Battlefield Earth. But in its original form it’s far too dull, and the only person we see naked is Paul Bettany. Unless you want to see his bleached ass crack there’s no reason to watch this.

The most exciting part of the movie  was when they stood on an angle.

I’m not even going to bother talking about the religious controversy surrounding the film, because I don’t really care. The film will probably do a service to the church, as it overturns the common view that religion is boring and blasphemy is fun. You may as well go sing some hymns if this is what the heretics are like.

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¹ Mandroid3000, "Brown, Dan - The Da Vinci Code", Karate Party, http://www.karateparty.org/content/view/25/30/