Filled with disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (21 June 2006)

I recently graduated from College with a BA in History and minors in French and Religion...Somehow I made it four years without actually finishing a book for an assignment and I rarely read for fun. When the movie came out my friends who read the book were so excited...but I couldn't see what all of the hype was about. So after graduation I decided to find out for myself, since the book seemed to be right up my ally, and I actually read it entirely in the course of a single day finding myself enthralled by its mystery, suspense and moderate accuracy for a piece of fiction....I absolutely love it, although not to the point of fanaticism...It brings up some good points, gets people thinking and talking, and although there are some historical errors that made me cringe it wasn't bad.
So naturally the next step was to see the film...and it left me filled with disappointment. I realize that there are many restrictions placed on films; time, money, sets, and the buildings and artwork found in the Da Vinci Code are not easily accessed. So I understand leaving out certain things like flashbacks, conversations and thoughts that are found in the book. However, what I cannot comprehend is why fundamental details of the book were changed for the movie.
To me the characters were underdeveloped, they made them look far less intelligent than they appeared in book, and yet they solved the clues so easily, also in the movie it seemed that Sophie resented code breaking where in the book it appeared to be her passion. The dynamic between characters felt unnatural and what was the need to not just leave out but blatantly change parts of the book for the movie.
Basically I don't like the principle of taking a recent best seller and changing fundamental details like the end,the middle, the beginning and the characters relationships. For me the imagery provided by the book, is so clear in my head that conflicting scenes of the movie made me angry and disappointed. To me the book was far more exciting and I don't even like to read!