Ron Howard rules!!!

Rating: 9/10 (4 June 2006)

I didn't like the book because I thought it was too long for what it had to say, and since reading of the book happens at the reader's pace, the puzzles weren't tough enough to appear difficult to a reader with a substantial mathematical knowledge at his own pace.
However the book did make me imagine the wonderful locations it goes through and I figured it was going to be a really good movie.
I read the critiques when the movie premiered - booing in Cannes, jokes about Tom Hanks' hair, Audrey Tautou's accent, incomprehensible dialogue, whatever. Some friends told me the book was better, some that they didn't like it and they didn't read the book, and fortunately, some told me that it was totally OK.
We saw it last night and we really liked it! I thought it could have been longer, and I wouldn't have even noticed it. The script was fine. Tom Hanks' hair is fine. Audrey's cute and intense, her accent does sound confusing in 2-3 lines but it is believable, and the rest is all fine. Everyone did a great job. I liked it how all the clues were highlighted and how they were passing through ghosts on the way to the Westminster Abbey; the flashbacks were clear and not overwhelming; I felt sorry for all the characters who were manipulated to do horrid things in the name of their faith, and the end of the movie offers the moral of the story much clearer than it was done in the book, and ... Yeah, I liked it very much.
There are 2-3 instances in the movie when the cut to what happens next was too fast, and I imagine the DVD will explain why some stuff was cut out -- probably to save some time, which they shouldn't have done.
And, unfortunately the sound was not crystal-clear which, given all the accents, in the audience full of popcorn and candy-chewing couch potatoes, for whom it is appealing to crack a difficult code fast without need to understand complex sentences, made it difficult to listen.