The Da Vinci Code More Controversy Than Charisma

Controversy usually helps films grow. This is easily seen by the blockbuster “Passion of the Christ”. History seems to have repeated itself again with the religious thriller “The Da Vinci Code”, which grossed record breaking box office numbers last week. Unfortunately, the oft-anticipated “Code” squanders its own audience, as only those with utterly divine attention spans can weather this snore of a film.

It doesn’t start out that way. The sinister albino assassin Silas brutally murders an elder curator at the Louvre in Paris. But the brutality of Silas is quickly matched by the curator’s own determination to turn himself into a grotesque human jigsaw puzzle, whose mystery is picked up by professor of symbols Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Paris police woman Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), the curator’s own grand-daughter.

Soon Langdon and Neveu are pursued by both Silas and his Vatican higher-up Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina) as well as stubborn detective Fache (Jean Reno). With the help of Holy Grail specialist Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), Langdon and Nevau find themselves on the threshold of a earth-shattering discovery.

Director Ron Howard does an admirable job catapulting both the cast and the audience into the historically-edged mysteries of the Dan Brown novel. The narrative is spliced together with spectacular recreations of Rome and Templars alike, as well as with charged sequences of Langdon putting together the puzzle pieces. The cast is superb, especially in the case of McKellen, who succeeds in acting circles around Hanks even on crutches.

So when all the pieces of the novel are in effective play, what goes wrong? First of all, Akiva Goldsman’s script is solid but not waterproof. The narrative seems to mistake Langdon and Neveu’s psychological issues with characterization and depth.

The Achilles’ Heel of the movies lies in its sheer length. Unhindered by already-dispatched antagonists and resolved plot points, the remaining character continue an already millennium-old globe trot following the film’s climax. Two churches and one full-circle later, the answer is found, but by then, the audience’s patience is lost.

If you’ve missed out on Dan Brown’s extravagant literary thriller, this film provides a good primer for the uber-selling novel. But those who have already read the novel should wait for the DVD – that way one can skip over the pretentious chit-chat which buries so much of the film in running time.