A rather dull adaptation shows the flaws of an overrated book

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2006)

Sorry to tell you but I found it all rather disappointing... First of all, the translation onto the big screen showed the flaws of the book which, however "grabby" it was, let's face it, it wasn't the big masterpiece most people believe it to be... It's an incredibly static movie: there' s so much exposition that it hurts!!! On a book you might get away with long scene of dialogue that go on for chapters and chapters (after all that was the strength of Brown's book: all those conspiracy theories) , but on a film, it all looks and feels rather dull! The few "action" scenes are so badly handled that it's almost incredible they got away with making them and have them financed by producers (The producer is the same guy who produces "24" a TV show that keeps you on the edge of your seat from week after week, with a twentieth of the budget DVC had)... I mean, let's take the car chase for example... It was all done in close-ups and cut so fast to try to deceive the audience that it was bigger and better that it actually was.
Tom Hanks looks almost embarrassed to be in the film bringing NO depth to his character at all... I could hardly care less about him... and (sadly) our lovely "Amelie" is ...erm... well lovely, but she should definitely stick to French films, where she is way better! The Character of Silas is very well portrait and Ian McKellen does a pretty good job too with a part that is so full of dialogue for the sake of exposition that it's unbelievable!
The direction itself by Ron Howard is pretty standard I have to say. He brings absolutely nothing new to the picture... The film is an exact transposition from the written page to the celluloid... but since we are talking about a book that's hardly "Shakespear", the end result feel all rather conventional. Ron Howard shoots everything in a pretty standard way. I have been to half of those places where the film takes place, and all of them(Louvre aside) looked much better in reality, something quite rare in an age of movies looking astonishingly perfect.
Some of the strength of the book was its construction: the way it left you hanging form one chapter to the other... Unfortunately the film follows he same tricks, and it failed! What works on the written page doesn't necessarily works on film. I'll give you an example: in the book Tom Hank's character arrives at the Louvre and is amazed by the sight of "something..." End of a chapter... Next chapter is about something else... and it'll pick up in the Louvre in a couple of chapters... That works in a book obviously. You just want to turn the next page and see what's going on. you don't want to go to bed, you just want to carry on reading...
The film does the same thing, it leaves the audience hanging for a moment... the same way TV series do... like a cliffhanger, but unfortunately it spoils the mood of that moment and ruins it all... It's against everything that movies (especially blockbusters.. which this clearly is!) are supposed to be. Movies are about creating the right mood, making people scared, making them laugh... creating tension... and so on. They are a different medium from books, and they should work in different way. Theer's no need to break the low of certain scenes, just because the book does so. In a cinema, you're sitting down anyway, and you're inside a dark room.. You just want to enjoy the moment, you don't want to be teased by a scene and than pick it up later when you're attention has already gone somewhere else and your nerves relaxed
In other words, it was all too literal, and to sterile if you ask me. And also... VERY LOOOOOOONG!!! The last half hour really lacks fuel... And that scene towards the ending... "I'm your grandmother" Oh My God!!! It was so dodgy. Just like a bad soap opera where relatives show up from nowhere... Another example of how something might seem right on the written page.. but when it's materialised on film it looks very cheesy and rather unbelievable!
Maybe it was because I had read the book, but it all felt very slow to me. But I suppose people who are new to the book might enjoy it more... Let's face it, it's just a "one-single good idea" (the whole Madgadalene thing) stretched for 2 and a half hour of "clucky" dialogue, 2-dimentional characters, rather standard recreations, and cheap twists!