Decent attempt to represent the book.

Rating: 8/10 (16 March 2010)

For me, the film falls into the mystery genre. It uses the typical who-dun-it type of progression. The whole movie revolves around 'solving' the mystery. In the case of this movie, the solving part takes front stage. In order to find out the solution, real life items, structures, and ideas are used to give clues to Robert (Tom Hanks) and Sophie (Audrey Tautou). The mystery itself revolves around religious beliefs about the life, moreover the lifestyle, of Jesus Christ. The flow of this film goes along the same path as films from the James Bond series. In the Bond films, James tends to travel from one location to another looking for the next clue or chasing a particular person. One clue takes the characters here, the clue they find there takes them somewhere new. Even though the clues in the movie are almost their own character, there are many more in-depth puzzles given in the book.
The location shots play a large part in making the film feel like it involves clues from the past. There are also elements of modern technology used to rush the information to the viewer. At one point, a pseudo power point is given to explain the significance of a picture. The movie has a very dark feeling. This plays a large role in making the viewer feel that there is something not right somewhere. It gives the feeling that there is a dark evil force behind all of the trouble. The brightest scene in the movie is the end, after all has been 'discovered'.
There are a few scenes shot from above that help give the viewer an idea of the surroundings for that scene. It also helps to show that the location is realistic; whether it was shot in a set or not. Some of the indoor church scenes have a lot of sculptures that add to the feeling of realism for those particular scenes.
All in all, this is a very good attempt at recreating a very information packed book. The nice thing about the movie is that it does not actually state whether or not everything was true or not. It gives the information and progresses through the plot quite nicely, but still leaves room for the audience to form their own opinion.