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
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
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