Too much like Nancy Drew

Rating: 6/10 (14 June 2006)

I liked the book better than the movie -- I was disappointed with Tom Hanks' performance for the first time. I think it was as much the fault of the director and the script as anything -- his lines were limited, his stricken expression unyielding.
Perhaps the problem lies in the effort to take a convoluted novel and condense it -- something had to go, and it was Langdon's personality and how he processed his dilemmas.
In an effort to keep the sweeping feel as the movie moved from one locale to another -- the Louvre, the Bois de Boulogne, Teabing's country cottage, London -- the movie ends up feeling like a string of ham-fisted clues, all wrapped in a neat little package in a grown-up Nancy Drew mystery. "Oh, look Bess, here's another anagram!"
An example of a movie that does a better job of sweeping to many locations, in my opinion, is the Pelican Brief (based on John Grisham's book) but it had longer to move more gracefully around the continent.
To his credit, I think Ron Howard trimmed some things for good reason -- what seemed somewhat engaging on paper may have come across as goofy and un-credible on the big screen.