Generally good movie without the excitement of the book

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2006)

The movie is a faithful rendering of the book in almost every detail.
What made the book a real page-turner was the cutting back and forth between two parallel but finally intersecting story lines. In movies this technique is called crosscutting and Dan Brown made it work on paper by alternating short chapters, ending each with a cliffhanger. That doesn't carry over into the movie with at all the same effect.
A difficulty Brown overcame in the book was explaining so much historical research without turning the book into a treatise. The movie has harder time doing this and at some points it sags under the weight. A few things aren't explained at all in an effort to speed the action.
The final scene in which Hanks returns to the Louvre is puzzling. It's meant to sum things up by using the two pyramids in the Carrousel du Louvre, the underground shopping center adjacent to the museum, but it doesn't work. Apparently you are supposed to think this is the center of things at the Louvre and not simply an element of decor in a mall. Anyone who has been there won't be fooled.
One thing the movie does better than the book is the visual analysis of Da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper. On the screen you can show the visual components very effectively.
As for the acting, I thought Tom Hanks was wooden and Ian McKellen a delight.