Here are the three most commonly asked questions regarding The Da Vinci Code film: 1) Why is this film so controversial? 2) Will I like the film if I haven't read the book? 3) What is up with Tom Hanks' hair? To answer question #1, basically the story claims that Jesus Christ was married to the so-called prostitute, Mary Magdalene and that the Holy Grail is actually not a "cup" but documents from the time of Christ that has proof that Magdalene and Jesus were married and the tomb of Mary Magdalene. To answer question #2, honestly, I don't know. I'm one of the millions of people who's read the book and absolutely loved it from start to finish, so I can't answer that. My best advice is for you to go and see it and tell me for yourself. To answer question #3, I also can't answer that. I don't know why Tom Hanks decided to have and keep that hairstyle, in my opinion, it looks like an angry beaver is on top of his head. From one of the previous sentences, you can see that I have read the book and I loved it. I loved the book, but I hated the movie. Here is what I say: the more you loved the book, the more you will hate the movie. The reason is because I felt that the movie butchered the book. By now, I now know that if you are making a book-based movie, you obviously can't keep everything in the book in the movie. The problem with the movie is that Ron Howard changed things he shouldn't have changed and kept things that he should have changed. I think that the movie gets all the fun and excitement the book contained and throws it in the trash. I found the film a bit dull and boring in some parts. I also felt it was stupid and corny. I mean whoever did the screenplay for this movie did a terrible job, the dialogue is just preposterous, it's stupid, it doesn't go with any of the characters. The basic storyline for The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of curator Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle) at the famous Louvre Museum in Paris. He was murdered by an Albino Monk named Silas (Paul Bettany) who is working for Opus Dei. On his last moments, Jacques begins to write a message. We are then introduced to a symbologist named Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). Lt. Collet (Etienne Chicot) asks Langdon to come and help them at the murder to see if he may have any information that can help them get to the murderer. He is then taken to the Louvre Museum and meets with Captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno). Robert finds that Fache is a stirdy and grumpy man who is hard to impress. Fache shows him the body of Sauniere, which looks exactly like one of Da Vinci's sketches, The Vitruvian Man. Fache also shows him a message Sauniere left which read "13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!" Fache asks him what it means, but Langdon has no idea. Unexpectedly, a French judicial cryptologist barges in with the name of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou). She claims that the Embassy has a message for Langdon that is a meaning of life or death. Sophie gives the phone to Langdon and realizes that it's Sophie's answering machine. Sophie then tells Langdon to enter a code and not ask questions. Not knowing what to do, Robert dials in the number and sees that there is a message for him, from Sophie Neveu. The message tells him he is in terrible danger. Making a fake excuse to Fache about a friend getting into an accident, he tells him that he needs to go to the bathroom to wash his face. Fache lets him go. As Robert enters the bathroom, he finds Neveu waiting for him. She says that Robert is the prime suspect for the murder of Jacques Sauniere, her grandfather. He says that under the message her grandfather wrote, there was also "P.S. Find Robert Langdon," which Fache wiped up before Langdon arrived. Because of that, Fache believes that Langdon is the killer of curator Jacques Sauniere, which he isn't, he's being falsely accused. Sophie also let him know that Lt. Collet put a GPS tracking device inside his coat so that they can keep track of him. Sophie also tells him that P.S. doesn't stand for Postscript in this situation, but instead stands for Princess Sophie. Sophie then gets his tracking device and throws it out the window with a bar of soap onto a truck. The cops stunned, they immediately leave the Lovure Museum to chase that bar of soap. Langdon and Neveu are inside the museum at all times, now two wanted criminals. Sophie believes that her grandfather is trying to tell her something important, but she can only find that out with the help of this Robert Langdon. Now, they both have only a limited time to go through Jacques' puzzles and riddles that he left them to find the answer of what her grandfather was trying to tell her, it could be the location of the Holy Grail. The real problem with The Da Vinci Code is that it doesn't take any risks like the book did. As you should know, both the book and the movie are getting boycotted by Christians, Albinos, foundations, etc. I thought the book was a lot more controversial than the movie, the book took the story of the Grail very seriously. It stood by what it said and Dan Brown risked almost everything in telling this story, but the movie, I felt didn't take the story very seriously. For starters, it hardly took any time to tell the story of the Grail, of how it tied with the maybe marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. As a lover of the book, I felt betrayed. Also, I loved how in the book, there were many puzzles that took the characters a long time to solve, but in the movie, the characters seem to be stupidly smart and solve it very quickly. At 149 minutes, The Da Vinci Code went surprisingly too fast. I think that whoever wrote the script for the film forgot to develop the characters a lot more than in the book. The book gives the characters a lot of depth. The cast is also not that great. Don't get me wrong, Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou are great actors, but these parts aren't right for them. In the book Langdon and Neveu had chemistry and later fell in love. In the movie, they have zero chemistry, which was a total let down because Tom Hanks is a great actor. It's not that Tom Hanks is a bad actor, because he's not, it's just that this role doesn't fit him, and it's very obvious if you've read the book, heck, probably if you didn't read the book you would be able to see that the role is just not right for him. Audrey Tatou as Sophie also wasn't cast very well. Well, for the most obvious she doesn't have the green eyes Dan Brown gave so much detail to in the book. She did do ok, not as awful as Tom Hanks as Langdon, he looked lost and it felt awkward seeing him play the part. Although, I did think that Paul Bettany as Silas and Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing were cast perfectly, they played their roles very well. To be honest, I have been waiting for this film all year and was hugely disappointed with the outcome. I think that The Da Vinci Code can never be made into a decent film. The film looked great, especially with the exotic locations the film was set in, but the film, to be honest, just didn't have enough of almost everything, I expected much more. The film did have its moments, but not enough, and sometimes the dialogue was just so cheesy that I found myself to almost laugh out loud. The flashbacks were also not filmed and placed very well throughout the movie. The Da Vinci Code is a film that only wishes it was as good as the book. The Da Vinci Code fails at being a decent movie. My grade for The Da Vinci Code: C- The Da Vinci Code (Review)
by AndrewXXXXXX on Comments
Here are the three most commonly asked questions regarding The Da Vinci Code film: 1) Why is this film so controversial? 2) Will I like the film if I haven't read the book? 3) What is up with Tom Hanks' hair? To answer question #1, basically the story claims that Jesus Christ was married to the so-called prostitute, Mary Magdalene and that the Holy Grail is actually not a "cup" but documents from the time of Christ that has proof that Magdalene and Jesus were married and the tomb of Mary Magdalene. To answer question #2, honestly, I don't know. I'm one of the millions of people who's read the book and absolutely loved it from start to finish, so I can't answer that. My best advice is for you to go and see it and tell me for yourself. To answer question #3, I also can't answer that. I don't know why Tom Hanks decided to have and keep that hairstyle, in my opinion, it looks like an angry beaver is on top of his head. From one of the previous sentences, you can see that I have read the book and I loved it. I loved the book, but I hated the movie. Here is what I say: the more you loved the book, the more you will hate the movie. The reason is because I felt that the movie butchered the book. By now, I now know that if you are making a book-based movie, you obviously can't keep everything in the book in the movie. The problem with the movie is that Ron Howard changed things he shouldn't have changed and kept things that he should have changed. I think that the movie gets all the fun and excitement the book contained and throws it in the trash. I found the film a bit dull and boring in some parts. I also felt it was stupid and corny. I mean whoever did the screenplay for this movie did a terrible job, the dialogue is just preposterous, it's stupid, it doesn't go with any of the characters. The basic storyline for The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of curator Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle) at the famous Louvre Museum in Paris. He was murdered by an Albino Monk named Silas (Paul Bettany) who is working for Opus Dei. On his last moments, Jacques begins to write a message. We are then introduced to a symbologist named Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). Lt. Collet (Etienne Chicot) asks Langdon to come and help them at the murder to see if he may have any information that can help them get to the murderer. He is then taken to the Louvre Museum and meets with Captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno). Robert finds that Fache is a stirdy and grumpy man who is hard to impress. Fache shows him the body of Sauniere, which looks exactly like one of Da Vinci's sketches, The Vitruvian Man. Fache also shows him a message Sauniere left which read "13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!" Fache asks him what it means, but Langdon has no idea. Unexpectedly, a French judicial cryptologist barges in with the name of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou). She claims that the Embassy has a message for Langdon that is a meaning of life or death. Sophie gives the phone to Langdon and realizes that it's Sophie's answering machine. Sophie then tells Langdon to enter a code and not ask questions. Not knowing what to do, Robert dials in the number and sees that there is a message for him, from Sophie Neveu. The message tells him he is in terrible danger. Making a fake excuse to Fache about a friend getting into an accident, he tells him that he needs to go to the bathroom to wash his face. Fache lets him go. As Robert enters the bathroom, he finds Neveu waiting for him. She says that Robert is the prime suspect for the murder of Jacques Sauniere, her grandfather. He says that under the message her grandfather wrote, there was also "P.S. Find Robert Langdon," which Fache wiped up before Langdon arrived. Because of that, Fache believes that Langdon is the killer of curator Jacques Sauniere, which he isn't, he's being falsely accused. Sophie also let him know that Lt. Collet put a GPS tracking device inside his coat so that they can keep track of him. Sophie also tells him that P.S. doesn't stand for Postscript in this situation, but instead stands for Princess Sophie. Sophie then gets his tracking device and throws it out the window with a bar of soap onto a truck. The cops stunned, they immediately leave the Lovure Museum to chase that bar of soap. Langdon and Neveu are inside the museum at all times, now two wanted criminals. Sophie believes that her grandfather is trying to tell her something important, but she can only find that out with the help of this Robert Langdon. Now, they both have only a limited time to go through Jacques' puzzles and riddles that he left them to find the answer of what her grandfather was trying to tell her, it could be the location of the Holy Grail. The real problem with The Da Vinci Code is that it doesn't take any risks like the book did. As you should know, both the book and the movie are getting boycotted by Christians, Albinos, foundations, etc. I thought the book was a lot more controversial than the movie, the book took the story of the Grail very seriously. It stood by what it said and Dan Brown risked almost everything in telling this story, but the movie, I felt didn't take the story very seriously. For starters, it hardly took any time to tell the story of the Grail, of how it tied with the maybe marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. As a lover of the book, I felt betrayed. Also, I loved how in the book, there were many puzzles that took the characters a long time to solve, but in the movie, the characters seem to be stupidly smart and solve it very quickly. At 149 minutes, The Da Vinci Code went surprisingly too fast. I think that whoever wrote the script for the film forgot to develop the characters a lot more than in the book. The book gives the characters a lot of depth. The cast is also not that great. Don't get me wrong, Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou are great actors, but these parts aren't right for them. In the book Langdon and Neveu had chemistry and later fell in love. In the movie, they have zero chemistry, which was a total let down because Tom Hanks is a great actor. It's not that Tom Hanks is a bad actor, because he's not, it's just that this role doesn't fit him, and it's very obvious if you've read the book, heck, probably if you didn't read the book you would be able to see that the role is just not right for him. Audrey Tatou as Sophie also wasn't cast very well. Well, for the most obvious she doesn't have the green eyes Dan Brown gave so much detail to in the book. She did do ok, not as awful as Tom Hanks as Langdon, he looked lost and it felt awkward seeing him play the part. Although, I did think that Paul Bettany as Silas and Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing were cast perfectly, they played their roles very well. To be honest, I have been waiting for this film all year and was hugely disappointed with the outcome. I think that The Da Vinci Code can never be made into a decent film. The film looked great, especially with the exotic locations the film was set in, but the film, to be honest, just didn't have enough of almost everything, I expected much more. The film did have its moments, but not enough, and sometimes the dialogue was just so cheesy that I found myself to almost laugh out loud. The flashbacks were also not filmed and placed very well throughout the movie. The Da Vinci Code is a film that only wishes it was as good as the book. The Da Vinci Code fails at being a decent movie. My grade for The Da Vinci Code: C-