As Good or Better Than the Book

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2006)

Brown's Da Vinci Code is basically a pulp fiction reworking of Umberto Eco's 1990 novel "Foucault's Pendulum," but it's nonetheless entertaining pulp fiction. The same is true of the film version on all counts, but contrary to the pack-mentality pans that career critics have given it, the film in many ways actually improves upon the book, most notably in Hanks' fleshing out of Brown's incredibly wooden hero Langdon. Hanks gives him a sense of brooding determination that breathes life and complexity into the character; Tautou, Reno and McKellan are perfectly cast opposite him. I think a big part of the reason the "pro" critics are trashing this movie is that they bought into the book's hype without ever bothering to consider the fact that as original source material the book was only lightweight pop-bestseller fare to begin with.
The controversy surrounding both the film and book has added to the mystique, but by now it's become tiresome in contexts of both the Christian protesters and of Brown himself.
Catholics have the most legitimate beef in that the story basically portrays their religion as a massive fraud. But for Catholics and Christians in general to have protested so loudly and bitterly about a theory shockingly simple to debunk with even a cursory study of history, comes across as an embarrassing confession of a lack of confidence in their own faith.
Brown has of course insisted from the start that his novel is factual. Why? For the exact same reason that Madonna has spent the bulk of her career playing trashy sexual innuendo off of her religion-steeped name: Stoking the fires of religious controversy will make you rich despite often profound shortcomings in talent.
Brown is playing the religious firestorm to the hilt no matter what the historians say; the vocal outrage from offended Christians, as in the case of Madonna, merely generates mountains of free publicity and amplifies the venture's success. It's really quite a brilliant moneymaking ploy when you think about it.
As for the rest of us? We're the happy recipients of the very thing that people generally expect - but find with diminishing frequency of late - in early summer movie fare: A good rip-snortin' adventure yarn.
Everybody loves a treasure hunt, particularly when it involves musty arcana, shadowy villains, a claim of roots in historical fact, and real-world locales and landmarks - "Da Vinci Code" has gobs of all of them. It doesn't pack anywhere near the mandatory-second-helping wallop of the phenomenal "Mission: Impossible III," but all controversy aside it's good, engaging and briskly-paced entertainment that's well worth the price of admission.
The only downside is that the entire screenplay is noticeably rushed - presumably because the producers knew it was a guaranteed blockbuster and were looking to maximize the box office take with as short a film as possible. Which means we can perhaps look forward to a generously-extended Director's Cut come DVD release time? We're counting on you, Opie...