Boy is this movie dumb

Rating: 3/10 (22 May 2006)

Putting aside any religious reference and only looking at the movie, nothing had anything to do with anything. Langdon is supposedly an expert on religious symbols, but that hardly comes into play. He spends most of the movie following other character's leads and looking sedated. I like Tom Hanks but what was he doing? Didn't seem like he was acting as much as simply being on camera.
We've got a psychopathic masochistic killer albino monk. That's three adjectives too many for one character. It doesn't give him depth; it gives him too many scenes without plot relevance. There are flashes of flashbacks for him and for others that only serve to show parts of the characters the rest of the story couldn't figure out how to get across.
They're chased on suspicion of murder without evidence. They have intimate knowledge of every obscure religious reference they happen to need. Despite making it incredibly easy to find or entrap them, they always get away. There are clues that could mean anything but always happen to mean exactly what they think it does, except when they guess wrong the first time and realize it later. It's just dumb storytelling. They also never eat or change their clothes or use the bathroom, but one can't fault the movie too much for that. A lot of movies are the same way.
Then there's the supposed religious aspect to the story. That made less sense than anything else. How anyone would find this blasphemous instead of ludicrous is beyond me. The controversy seems to be about the idea Christ was not what the church claimed. I think they would find it much more offensive that the church, as depicted in the movie, has spent centuries killing anyone who tries to disprove that divinity. Because what sense would that make? The church doesn't want anyone to know their belief is a lie? Why? So they'll keep donating to the church? And if you don't we'll kill you? That's the stupidest thing I've heard this week!
I could understand a religious organization's objection to any attempt to sway the beliefs of its followers. However, if the attempt is to show proof, of which said organization is aware, that those beliefs are false...I don't get it. We know we're wrong but we'll kill anyone who tries to prove it? That doesn't make any sense. If there was actually proof they were wrong, they'd find another way to claim they were right, and deny the credibility of the evidence. They wouldn't spend two millennia killing everyone who came in contact with the proof.
And as for the proof, within the logic of the movie, there really isn't any. There's a lot of information and conjecture and assumption, but no proof. Even if they prove the one thing they're trying to, that still doesn't discount the initial religious claims. It just tells a different story.
I can't be more specific without giving things away, but there's no point. A lot of little moments in the trailer tell you all sorts of things you're not supposed to have figured out. And whenever someone or something turned out not to be what they or it appeared, it was fairly obvious, but it still didn't matter because even though I knew who was supposed to be good or bad, I couldn't tell why. I had no idea why anyone was doing anything they did or had others do for them. Totally unmotivated. Some things are explained in a throw-away manner, but that's simplistic motivation, not explanatory. "I did this because of this." It's a reason but it's not defined.
A stupid movie with nothing of interest or any moment of solid entertainment. One guy in the theater snored through most of Ian McKellen's big scene with The Last Supper, which was actually pretty dull and wholly uninformative, not to mention meaningless. No I wasn't the guy snoring. I do snore occasionally, but I don't sleep through movies.
DaVinci hardly has anything to do with this movie. It's called his code but there was almost nothing shown of his works that came from him with the purpose of mystery or hidden truth. Slightly more was done by someone else in reference to his work, but only as a point of reference. I can say that, without giving anything away, somebody leaves something for someone else behind one of his paintings, and writes in blood on the floor and the window in front of the Mona Lisa. Just a location. DaVinci himself did almost nothing to contribute to the mystery. It has nothing to do with him. If you want a fun movie about the intricate mystery of DaVinci's work and inventions, go rent Hudson Hawk. It's a lot more entertaining. It's even more realistic, and if you've seen Hudson Hawk...it ain't realistic. But it is funny.
The only truly enjoyable part of the movie was that Audrey Tautou always looked cute. I don't mean to sound like a dumb guy in saying that, but seriously...I didn't like the photography, the music annoyed me, none of the actors looked all that thrilled to be there...even she didn't seem interested in the story. But she still looked cute. For whatever that's worth.
The financial success of the movie, however ridiculous that is, probably means we'll see another Dan Brown adaptation within a couple years. Having read a pair of his paperbacks before DaVinci first hit the shelves, I can honestly say I am not looking forward the promotion of another crapfest.