The Best Advertisement For Atheism.

Rating: 5/10 (10 May 2009)

I'm feeling generous - Christian, if you like - so I've given it 5 stars.
Though quite where I'm awarding them is unclear even to me. This has to be one of the ditchiest-dull movies of all time. It's like a Tolkein epic but without the special effects, the battles and the monsters.
Tom Hanks, his face stricken and artificially-aged by a permanent frown, escorts some sort of femme-fatale through all of the gloomiest set-pieces ever dreamt-up by Hollywood. A curious albino bloke with a penchant for self-flagellation - who might well have escaped from a Tolkein set - pops-up from time to time to commit sundry acts of murder. Various other characters come and go. Jurgen Prochnow trades his U-boat for a truck, Ian McKellern lends a bit more middle-earth de-ja-vu, and Jean Reno attempts to obscure the other actors with his nose.
This is the ultimate religious conspiracy theorists movie. A deep, dark secret is being held by a furtive organisation. It's the biblical equivalent of 'Hanger 13'. What is this secret? Does anyone stay awake long enough to find out? Someone with more resilience than myself told me that - apparently - this femme-fatale is a direct descendant of Christ. Like; the crucified one had a bit on the side with Mary Magdalen. Is that it? Is that the great big bete-noir of history? Gosh; stop the press.
After 2000 years of generations, lets say - about 100; how much of Christ's genetic constitution is she likely to speak for now? Somebody knows a lot more about 'mystery' than they do about genetics.
This is slow, dark, and oh-so-talky. Despite the fact that the lead characters seem to run everywhere. It's a religious storm-in a tea-cup, much ado about nothing, clerical codswallop. Neither does it help that I'm no particular fan of Tom Hanks.
Conspiracy theorists and religious freaks will no-doubt nod sagely at its gloomy foreboding passage. Whereas those of us who live in the rational world can see it for the pretentious tripe that it is.
For some, it's as if The Enlightenment never happened.