Horrible adaption to the big screen...

Rating: 3/10 (7 June 2006)

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*** Some minor spoilers ahead ***
Ever since I finished reading all 4 Dan Brown novels, I've been expecting that a filmmaker would deliver a masterpiece on the big screen. To begin, I wish they could have just shot Angels & Demons first, then The Da Vinci Code. But rather than that, they did Da Vinci first instead. In my opinion, the result is a disaster.
For those who haven't read the novel, the story is about an American teacher, Robert Langdon, who is an specialist in old history, symbols, religion tales and some other interesting stuff. He's famous in the academic world and whenever there's some fanatic trying to figure some possible hidden meaning in a painted picture, or a text in a book, they seek him. There's just a single scene in the entire movie I really loved and that was when Langdon is presenting some symbols to the public in a presentation.
Both movie and book tell the story about a man who is brutally murdered and Langdon is asked for help by the french police. The main problem with this movie is that director Ron Howard simply took the book and threw it away to the big screen. The scenes seems rushed (Langdon and Neveu in the book have great chemistry and even share a kiss at the end, but in the movie, there's no chemistry at all and maybe it was even wise not having shot a scene where this happens).
Besides that, Howard changed some details here and some other details there. Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu is horrendous! Ian McKellen as Teabing is another let-down too. In the book, he's very charismatic and even when he takes over, Dan Brown never expects us to believe he is evil. In the movie, in a failed attempt to try giving climax to it, Teabing rises like some traitor, with almost no purpose at all, threatening Langdon and Neveu as we never would have imagined.
This movie seems to have been made as if the actors interpreted it like it was some stage script show, making everything artificial. The flashback scenes are not that great and the characters are not believable at all. The book is much better. The only two actors I sincerely enjoyed were Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany. Not even Jean Reno saves the show in this one, and let me tell you: I was really looking forward to seeing Fache.