Poorly directed, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly paced

Rating: 3/10 (20 May 2006)

Today I saw The Da Vinci Code. I would like to mention that I have not yet read the book by Dan Brown.
The movie is bad, very bad. Poorly directed, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly paced. Almost everything was bad except for three things: 1) in some places the cinematography and special effects are mindblowingly fluid and beautiful 2) Paul Bettany was amazing in the role of assassin albino monk Silas 3) Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf in LOTR and Magneto in X-Men) was amazing as well and really made the movie a whole lot more enjoyable. Without him, this movie would have been a whole lot worse.
Tom Hanks is useless in this movie, he does not even act, he just appears on the screen and says his lines, no acting at all. His character is pointless, all that he does is solve some puzzles at mind-blowing pace. NOTHING MORE.
The story is good, but it's not controversial. If anyone on this planet thinks this story is sacrilegious, then they are narrow minded, even stupid. I will not give away the story, although many know it already. Let me just say that this story does in no way reduce the importance or the role of God or Jesus, all that it does is to say that the Church, Catholic, Orthodox, etc is not as holy as it seems and that priests have been using religion to suit their own benefit.
This, I do not find disturbing at all. Why? If people don't think this is true, then you must have forgotten about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the slaughter of the Native American population, all in the name of religion, while actually they were done in the name of power and wealth.
But, while the story is mediocre and OK, the rest of the movie is so bad I thought that I was watching a soap-opera made by a drunk director and his porn-star girlfriend/actress.
Seriously, this is ONE movie that I recommend you download of the internet. I saw this in the cinema with a packed theater. Every showing in at least 4 cinemas at out multiplex has been packed. This movie is going to make a whole lot of money. And I feel bad that trash movies like this get to make money while other good movies go unnoticed.
DO NOT PAY TO WATCH THIS MOVIE. DON'T GIVE THEM AN EXCUSE TO MAKE SUCH BAD MOVIES AGAIN.
My mark for the film: 3/10 for Sir Ian McKellen and Paul Bettany who literally took cow dung (menure, fertilizer, SH*T) (and by that I mean the script) and turned it into gold.