A literal adaptation of a tedious book

Rating: 3/10 (14 November 2006)

With a Dan Brown novel you can put it down before going to sleep - and maybe that's its greatest attribute. It won't engage your mind enough to cause a disturbed night but it won't annoy you quite enough to feel you're wasting your life. Then comes the movie. A faithful adaptation of the novel - faithful in a Harry Potter way; it's all in there whether it's good or not - but with such a clunking script it defies description. E.g. Tom Hanks: "I need to get to a library. FAST." Bad enough, but they go by double decker bus! The cast make valiant efforts to lift the thing but without success. Plot point are verbally highlighted lest we should miss them in a kind of Roadrunner/TV Batman kind of way. The whole thing feels like a Sunday night ITV adaptation of a novella with which they try to maximise advertising revenue by spreading it over two 90 minute programmes. Don't get too depressed though. They've started work on Angels and Demons.....