Bad book, marginal movie

Rating: 4/10 (13 December 2007)

With the ridiculous book as a source it was an uphill battle for this movie to be anything other than ridiculous as well. The movie however did have the benefit of a 2 hour, or so, format. The book is interesting for about 3 or 4 chapters before it spins into absurd puzzles, mazes, and riddles. By the middle of the book, it's virtually unreadable. I finished it but it was painful.
The movie never grows nearly as tiresome as the incredibly overrated book, but it does suffer from the same over the top tendencies. The script, given the text from which to draw, was decent. The scenery and cinematography typical Howard. Good to better than good. It's no Apollo 13, and cinematography masterpiece, but The Davinci Code is compelling visually.
Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks. Multi academy award winner, all around likable fellow, and a fine actor. Terribly miscast here. I was never able to buy in to him in this lead role.
I would say this is a watchable movie if you haven't read the book. If you have, well if you like the book I really couldn't begin to guess if you'll like the movie because you clearly have some issues with quality, but if you are like most sane people and think the book is complete rubbish, then the movie will be a bit more of the same. Sunday afternoon on HBO perhaps. Spending money at the rental store, definitely not.