A puzzle without a purpose.

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2006)

*SPOILERS*
Well, I saw this at the theater on May 21/06 and I have never read the book (and don't intend to). I did not go into the theater with great expectations, I was merely killing time and curious. But I really thought this movie was lame, pointless, and dull. The Catholic church and other Christian groups opposed to the theology of this film have given it much publicity which it does not deserve - they would have done better to ignore this white elephant for the claptrap that it is.
On the characters: Tom Hanks is surprisingly dull, but he bears a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa, and although he is the protagonist and "hero" he does very little to move the story along or bring it to any conclusion. Audrey Tautou is obviously a descendant of Jesus, but she doesn't make anything at all of it when the "great truth" is revealed to her, but she's a decent driver and fighter when the plot calls for action. Ian McKellen is a very interesting and complex character, and he relieves the boredom which permeates this unwieldy film, but his character also falls victim to a plot riddled with so many conspiracy theories that his role is eventually lost in its own sophistication. Jean Reno reprises Robert Vaughn's role in Bullitt, that of a useless but irritating antagonist. Paul Bettany plays the "albino" monk with blue eyes - he is more Aryan than albino - and he is certainly an interesting and dedicated villain. Alfred Molina is the Opus Dei puppet-master, but his motives are as vague as the mechanics of transubstantiation. For all we know, he could be Paul Bettany's secret gay lover...
As for the plot and storyline, this movie is about a Catholic Opus Dei vs Priory of Scion conspiracy which makes no sense. At the heart of this movie is the idea that the tomb of Mary Magdalene must be kept hidden from the world so that Christians would not know that Jesus had children by her - this is a deeply flawed premise as the finding of her bones would offer no evidence or proof that Jesus had jumped those bones when they were covered in flesh. What would have been a better conspiracy is if they were hiding the bones of Jesus, or even of Mary the mother of Jesus (as this would threaten the Catholic doctrines of Assumption and Perpetual Virginity). Further, since both the Priory and the Catholics want to keep this a secret, why all the fuss?
Some other blunders are the references in the film to Fibonacci numbers without any elucidation...it would have been better storytelling if Tom Hanks had explained the significance of these numbers to the audience, but Ron Howard can't tell a story to save his life.
Also, clues which are hundreds of years old inexplicably lead to modern architecture.
Also, there are not enough Catholics protecting "the secret" to really justify calling this a conspiracy...Tom Hanks should have been pursued by an army of monks made up of rank and file average Catholics, and not simply by a lone psychotic who sticks out like a sore thumb.
Also, Mr. Hanks quickly jumps to the conclusion that Ms. Tautou is "the last living descendant of Jesus" without even knowing about her relatives...she may have had hundreds of aunts, uncles, cousins.... In fact, when he meets her grandmother he should have realized she would have a 1 in 4 chance of also being descended from Jesus, and any serious scholar would have immediately questioned her lineage, yet Tom simply ignores her like she was bland wallpaper. And when Audrey finds out the truth, she just grins like an idiot, and apparently loses all concern for 1)her slain relatives, 2)a worldwide deception, 3)the ongoing threat to her life, and 4)substantiating the validity of Tom's claims by finding the proof of her lineage.
In short, this "conspiracy theory" story doesn't have enough substance to be either a conspiracy or even a theory. It's just a load of bunk.