The Book is Always Better Than The Film, And That Is Not Saying Much.

Rating: 3/10 (21 May 2006)

My whole world has been flipped upside down....Mission Impossible 3 was better than the Da Vinci Code.
The movie seems to suffer from the same shortcomings as the book itself. The basic story is an interesting one; not the religious controversy, but rather the elaborate treasure hunt the characters take to unravel the titular secret, and the twists and turns they encounter along the way. One of the problems with the book is Dan Brown's mediocre prose, and the movie seems to be plagued by more of the same. Much of the dialogue is unmemorable or ridiculous, and some of the details that made the book intriguing and the characters likable have been altered or removed.
The film alternates between short bursts of unsatisfying action and ponderous scenes of exposition, second-guessing the audience's ability to grasp the more "challenging" concepts by stating them repeatedly. The film itself is over-long, yet still manages to leave out some of the book's more interesting scenes.
The movie's only saving grace, IMHO, is the cast. Tom Hanks is a suitable Langdon, as far as I am concerned. The character is not a difficult one to translate to the screen, being fairly flat. The always radiant Audrey Tatou brings a wounded grace to her French cryptologist; Paul Bettany (one of my personal favorites) makes the albino Silas a sympathetic character, even lacking the scant scenes of narration from his point of view the novel offers. It is Ian McKellan who deserves the most credit for his role, giving the film a much needed dose of humor with his sparkling portrayal of Sir Leigh Teabing, the physically crippled but quick witted historian who helps Langdon and Neveu in their modern-day Grail Quest.
All in all, I would say that fans of the book should see the film, if only to take in the disappointment for themselves.