Very pretentious, ambition gone entirely wrong

Rating: 4/10 (19 May 2016)

"The Da Vinci Code" is the first film from Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's series of adaptations of the Dan Brown novels. It combines elements from all kinds of genres, such as mystery, drama, history and thriller. And it all revolves around the complicated topic of religion. I would not say that I am generally a fan of religion-centered films, but if the quality is good, then I can watch it. And I also like lead actors Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, so it was really high time I would check this one out. But I was very much disappointed. The film tried to be so so much, so epic, so relevant and in the end nothing stayed, apart from the try-hard (that even rhymes).
It was a very pompous film. They obviously put huge focus on costumes, sets, makeup etc. and in the end with the ultimately extremely uninspired writing, this is all that stays. It is a great example of style over substance. A major problem here is the runtime too. The story is rarely convincing and having to sit through this, almost 3 hours, at some point turns into a really painful watch. This film dragged a lot and I would have loved it to be 45 minutes shorter or even more. Not even Tom Hanks, who is always very likable, could elevate the material for me here. I guess, even for him, not every movie can be a winner. So yeah, I certainly do not recommend the watch and at this point I have zero interest of seeing any of the sequels to this one. No idea why they are making new ones even at this point, more than a decade later, unless they really got a lot of better which I doubt. Watch something else instead.