Not as good as the novel...

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2006)

...but few movies are. Too much was changed from the book to the movie, including a critical scene with DaVinci's masterpiece "Madonna on the Rocks," the importance of the Golden Ratio to the artist (as in "Vitruvian Man"), and a scene with the cryptic (it had two layers of codes in the book, only one in the movie).
It was cool to see DaVinci's paintings, particularly "The Last Supper," used in the context of the book. I had a hard time picturing the details of the painting, specifically the posing of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
I thought all along that Tom Hanks (one of my favorite actors) was a bit miscast as Langdon, but he was credible. Audrey Tautou is understatedly beautiful and sophisticated as Princess Sophie. Jean Reno played Capt. Fache as if the role was written for him. Ian "Gandolf" McKellan was perfect as the obsessive Grail historian Leigh Teabing. And Paul Bettany was spooky as the Opus Dei assassin Silas.
Bottom line, "The DaVinci Code" didn't live up to the hype, but was nowhere near as bad as the critics say. 7 out of 10.
and now, a rant: The worst part of The DaVinci Code had nothing to do with either the book or the movie. We had to sit through 18 minutes of commercials (yes, commercials!) before the previews. Now I don't know about you the reader, but I go to the movies to escape the commercials. People in the theater were actually booing and yelling. I don't drop $9.50 on a movie so I can watch commercials that I can see at home. In my theater in North Jersey, the commercials were for Cablevision and its subsidiaries I/O digital cable and Optimum Online, none of which are even available in my area.