DaVinci Code review ... (AKA how I will save you $8.00 +) (Spoilers)

[lopxtc]

Hey all ... well went out with the wife last night to catch "The Da Vinci Code", and movie that she and I had anticipated for some time after we had both read the books. We decided that we would catch a late showing so that we could have a nice night out and hopefully avoid any major crowds ...

There was maybe 30 people in the main theater in the Des Peres theater ...

In a couple words, the movie was horrible. If you have ever read the book than do yourself a favor and wait till this hits the cheap theater or its a rental. Ill highlight my points as to why it was not a good movie.

Pacing:

1 -- They took a fast paced book and turned it into a very slow movie. My wife actually feel asleep in parts of the movie and I was getting drowsy.

Characters:

1 -- They made Robert Langdon a skeptic!!!! Yes you heard me right, Langdon is a skeptic in the movie and doesnt believe up till almost 3/4 of the way through the movie that the "grail" exists. In the book he has devote a major chunk of his life to the "grail", second only to Teabing, and in the movie he is a skeptic that takes convincing.
2 -- Sophie's character is reduced from the cryptographic expert who helps solve as many clues as Langdon and Teabing to pretty much a tag-along side kick who only solves one riddle. Its almost insulting that a book that spends so much time talking about the elevated position of women in the pagan religion, compared to current christianity, reduces her role in the overall story to a "short round" in sense/
3 -- Her grandfather, AKA - the part of the movie that made me want to walk out. Believe it or not they actually change the book so that in the end of the movie we are told that the person who she thought was her grandfather was just a person who was raising her and watching after her. In the movie the only person in her family that is alive still is her grandmother ... the whole accident and seperation of her brother and grandmother and grandfather never happens. She doesnt even have a living bother in the movie.

Plot Points:

1 -- Opus Dei. The movie shows Opus Dei as buddy with the Vatican, even though one of the driving forces behind the plot is the fact that the Vatican wants Opus Dei removed. Aringarosa was almost a non-character and not the major character that he was in the book.
2 -- The Vatican council. The movie comes out and says that the pope knows nothing of what is going on in the plot to find and destroy the grail, which is absolute BS since in the book Aringarosa was almost upset that the pope wasnt there to talk to him at his meeting with the concil.
3 -- The whole idea of the goddess and the Mary Magdelan lead chrurch is given virtually no screen time. They barely even scratch the surface of why women were in elevated positions and make no mention of the importance of the ceremony that Sophie walks in on that leads to the rift between her and her grandfather.

I could go on and on ... but to put it bluntly, everyone exited the theater pretty much grumbling about how bad the movie was.

Aaron

[Cow hunter]

i wanted to go see the movie, now i dont really want to..... i listened to the abridged version of the book on CD, then read the book, and i must say even though it was great, it wasnt dan browns best work. i thought angels and demons was beter

[atm743]

i was THINKING in seeing it but it didnt really intrest me that much

i went to go see RV last night and some guy was protesting some baptist thing outside.

hes like its onholy and im like OK..........

[robnix]

Rottentomatoes has it at 18% right now, which means only 18% of the reviews that have come in have been positive.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/da_vinci_code/

[Steelrat]

Thats why I subscribe to the premium cable package. I'm saving my hard-earned pennies for X-men 3.

[Jaan]

This has got to be the best review so far (no offense OP):

"You know a movie's a dud when even its self-flagallating albino killer monk isn't any fun."

[Pacifist_Farmer]

I think the problem with the movie is that it is an intellectual book turned into a movie to capture an audience that didn't read the book, and are therefore likely* not intellectual.

*My apologies to anyone who cant read for medical reasons or was too busy over the last two years.

My wife and I both enjoyed the movie, we agreed that it had fallen down in some places but that it was overall decent.

All the real nerds voiced the same displeasure with LOTR. The only difference is: more people have read Da Vinci Code more recently.

[Jonno06]

i loved the book and had big plans on seeing the movie, but after hearing a review from a fellow book reader, it doesn't seem so pleasing anymore :(

[SCpoloRicker]

I think the problem with the movie is that it is an intellectual book turned into a movie to capture an audience that didn't read the book, and are therefore likely* not intellectual.

Whazzah?? :spit_take

/you're right about LOTR, though

[Steelrat]

/you're right about LOTR, though

Well, at least the music video is entertaining http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/hobbits

[warbeak2099]

Well, a lot of people may think it's an intellectual book in the sense that it inspires a lot of radical ideas about the church. However, it really is more of an entertainment source. While there very well could be a bloodline of Jesus, most of Dan Brown's theories are easily shot down using historical facts and objectively proven findings. Too many people take it the wrong way, as if this story is feasible and that Brown is really on to something. This is probably the reason the movie failed. It was written as a screenplay to be entertaining. In order to do this they felt they needed to cut or edit some things. Readers of the novel thought that it had to follow the exact same story to protect the integrity of Brown's "theory". I put "theory" in quotations because in the basic definition of the word, it is based upon facts. I'm sure if you look at the movie the same as the book, simply a source of entertainment, it's not that bad. If you're looking for a feasible theory that really strikes a deep, intellectual chord, neither the book or the movie are going to satisfy you. Again though, most people just don't seem to grasp that.

[robnix]

This is funny:

How The Da Vinci Code Doesn't Work

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/davinci-code.htm

[Thordic]

The book was awful, I wasn't expecting much from the movie anyway.

[Lohman446]

What I find funny is how much the people who refer to it as so "intellectual" and the church take it so serious. Its a work of fiction, and its ideas are so loosely based in reality... well someone else summed it up better than I did

The church complaining about the Davinci code is like Nasa complaining about Star Wars.

[warbeak2099]

Well put.

[tropical_fishy]

For God's sake, everyone, this book was FICTION. It was not intellectual. Everyone and their mother has read it, listened to it on tape, heard the Church denouncing it, or watched any of the plethora of TV shows on it. NO ONE, unless they have lived under a rock for the past few years, is going into this movie not knowing what's going on. You want an intellectual novel? Read Brave New World, or Childhood's End, or 1984, or Blindness. Read books like Dan Brown's for fun, sure. But don't read them and pretend they're something they aren't.

Dan Brown wrote a fiction novel, cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguised as fact. There was just enough fact in the book to make people believe it. I think that the Church's complaints about the DaVinci Code just makes them look like petulant children, who dislike it when things don't go their way. I have a neighbor who is born-again and a total nutjob (which I suspect is unrelated to her religion, but I'm not entirely certain) who freaks out whenever the DaVinci Code is mentioned, and goes into this whole long list of reasons why it's heresy, etc. But then, this is the woman whose children (aged 6 and 8) have lectured me on "why blowjobs are bad."

[SCpoloRicker]

Well, a lot of people may think it's an intellectual book in the sense that it inspires a lot of radical ideas about the church. However, it really is more of an entertainment source. While there very well could be a bloodline of Jesus, most of Dan Brown's theories are easily shot down using historical facts and objectively proven findings. Too many people take it the wrong way, as if this story is feasible and that Brown is really on to something. This is probably the reason the movie failed. It was written as a screenplay to be entertaining. In order to do this they felt they needed to cut or edit some things. Readers of the novel thought that it had to follow the exact same story to protect the integrity of Brown's "theory". I put "theory" in quotations because in the basic definition of the word, it is based upon facts. I'm sure if you look at the movie the same as the book, simply a source of entertainment, it's not that bad. If you're looking for a feasible theory that really strikes a deep, intellectual chord, neither the book or the movie are going to satisfy you. Again though, most people just don't seem to grasp that.

O RLY?

[Lohman446]

But then, this is the woman whose children (aged 6 and 8) have lectured me on "why blowjobs are bad."

You do explain the other side of the argument of why they are good right?

[warbeak2099]

O RLY?

QUITE RLY!

Hahahaha, Tropical Fishy is also right. This book is a bit of airline reading for sheer entertainment. It certainly does not deserve entry into the list of novels by Faulkner, Orwell, Vonnegut, Tolkein, etc. It is by no means a masterpeice of the english language nor will ti ebcome a classic novel. Dan Brown is nothing more than a pop culture / entertainment writer. His glaring innacuracies challenge even that.

Oh, and blowjobs are great. I don't care what the church says. Road head is a novelty however, and should be experienced once only. It just gets old people.

[tropical_fishy]

You do explain the other side of the argument of why they are good right?

I was too busy picking my jaw off the floor and wondering how a 6 year old knows about blowjobs.

[Thordic]

I was too busy picking my jaw off the floor and wondering how a 6 year old knows about blowjobs.

;)