Did not live up to the hype.

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2006)

There is a cardinal rule to writing good fiction - SHOW, DON'T TELL. Large parts of this film seemed more like a lecture than a story. If you can imagine having all the right ingredients to a good casserole - and then turning over food preparation duties to a bad cook - you have THE DA VINCI CODE.
This cannot be Ron Howard's finest hour as a director nor Akiva Goldsman's finest hour as a screenplay writer. The writing either had no emotion behind it or Howard's direction was non-existent. Either way, there's only so much a veteran actor like Tom Hanks can do in such a scenario.
P.S. As a non-Christian and a fan of Hanks, I was predisposed to "like" the film when I saw it. I didn't. The only good thing to come out of this film is that fundamentalist Christians dislike it just as much as fundamentalist Moslems (Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam) - giving the two religions a common bond that could inspire better understanding between them.