Too long -- too distorted --- and (the biggest sin of all) too DULL

Rating: 3/10 (10 September 2008)

Is it FICTION or FACT? (Spoiler soon.) The scholar Leigh Teabing reveals the secret in this too long film - that some Catholic group (Opus Dei) will kill and torture to suppress....
Teabing claims that bloodthirsty churchmember fans of Dan Brown's cardboard "jesus" long ago decided to kill thousands (maybe millions), brutally oppress women and be as ruthless as any mafia in keeping the big secret. The supposed secret (based on incredibly bad scholarship) was that "jesus" married Mary Magdalene (per some spurious ancient texts long passed over as - fake).
And the French girl Sophie is "jesus's" descendant - so she is the living "holy grail" that the church mafia types wish to murder. And since Teabing turns out to be the villain, the film/book can "officially" VERBALLY step away from his claim. ...+++++
There are many websites, scholarly books to debunk this most silly set of half baked truth claims.
The movie has the big name actors and rides on the publicity from a highly controversial book. Ron Howard (who has directed quality films elsewhere) joins Dan Brown & co to do the "Mapplethorpe" to the Christian faith and say "It's just art! It's merely fiction!" as they pocket their bankroll.
In the movie's second scene, Tom Hank's character justaposes various potent visual images on the screen as he talks about the POWER of the IMAGE.. It's a clue to the not so secret slant of the movie.
Technically, Hank's character is not saying that Spanish priests (dressed in white hooded robes) ARE like the KKK, but the VISUAL image clearly implies this.
Most visual images for Christianity (incluing some of the artwork and statues as well as most all the film's Jesus followers) are shown as evil, tormented, cruel, and or strangely laden with secret meanings just discovered...so that one wants to breathe a sigh of false "relief" at the film's claim of religious "fraud".
This is masterful manipulation. Plainly portrayed, but verbally denied by the participants.
***** But to those who want to TEST truth claims - even in a fiction story - Research the pagan era. It's not the glorious era hinted at by this movie...Our ancestors turned from the "cold cruel night of paganism" to leave such things as...
Women as temple prostitutes (Hinted at in this movie - developed more in the book)--Infants (especially girls or the disabled) exposed to die--Slaves who were no longer fit thrown on the streets to die (and then taken in and nursed by early Christians)...and various examples of human sacrifice as well as a general contempt for human life. That truly was the beastly era.
This movie could be called "Seducing Sophie". For the Feminine in full blast Paganism is "the abused".