Ron Howard didn't crack the Da Vinci Code.

Rating: 1/10 (22 June 2007)

I have read the book before seeing the movie with family members who haven't. Thanks Heavens we watched it on DVD because after every 10 minutes we had to stop for me to explain what was going on.
It seems that director Ron Howard and his script-writers have left out just about everything that would have added some depth or meaning to an otherwise not bad, but far-from-great novel.
The cast is an enigma to me. Audrey Tatou in all of her roles is always herself, and I think few are extraordinarily fond of her (she is somewhat creepy) and Tom Hanks, otherwise good as he may be, here with a humiliating toupee or bob, whichever)is not fit for the role of an adventurous beau professor, either.
Paul Bettany excels as Silas (okay, he is always great), he is outstanding in an otherwise extremely poor movie. Ian McKellen is miscast. Alfred Molina tries his best but the role he has has been twisted been emptied by the movie makers. Even Jean Reno has such a poor role that I completely forgot he had anything to do with the flick and just got reminded as I went through the cast.
This all adds up to a movie where - as our private screen testing revealed- nobody gets anything who hasn't read the book, and the ones who have feel they have to apologize.
The others didn't get that Silas is a victim of fanaticism and is betrayed. They saw a freak and serial killer in him.
Nobody understood what the catholic Church was doing with Bishop Aringarosa.
Nobody seriously believed that Audrey Tatou's character understands even part of what she is talking about (as it could not be understood by anyone who has not read the novel).
The novel has something of the Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose- some thinking, some theories, some religious sacrileges, to give you a spooky and enjoyable medieval feeling. The movie completely fails to transfer this. Instead, the characters do an awful lot of talking- which is really annoying, as the characters portrayed by the badly picked actors are, other than in the book- and from their lengthy and cheesy dialogs is the complicated story to unfold. Well, it doesn't.
If there is anything good to be credited to the novel of Dan Brown, it is the atmosphere and tension related to mysticism, fanaticism and religion in general, as well as the secretiveness of the sects involved that hook you and make you read the novel in one night. Nothing of that atmosphere was cast in the movie adaptation. Less talking (or even a dark, male narrator's voice) and a little more tension could have done most of the job.
If there ever was a movie deserving a 1 out of 10, this surely does.