But first, a test of honor.

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2016)

I'm actually impressed by how effective this schmaltzy blockbuster is. The original novel by Dan Brown had an immediate impact and popularity, partly because of its controversial premise that made people flock to find out the truth for themselves. Brown semi-convincingly weaves enough historical truth and reference into it that the more gullible reader takes at face value. I remember myself being momentarily amazed after looking closely at The Last Supper for the first time and seeing the feminine figure hand in hand with Jesus Christ himself. That was a page turner - doctor waiting room material, for light reading on public transport, and so on. The film takes on the same qualities. It starts essentially as a detective mystery, which is a genre which has worked for centuries because we as an audience like being told that final, baffling yet brilliant solution and then rifling back through the pages and picking up on the clues that have been subtly inserted. The film, like the novel, is effective because it builds on our assumed knowledge and weedles its way past our doubts. We know the Mona Lisa, we know the Last Supper, we know the legend of the Holy Grail, but did we know these little secrets beyond them? How many knew of the Opus Dei before The Da-Vinci Code?
What the detective mystery also relies on is dumping loads of information and then re-assembling the bits into a solution that the audience would recognise but not have the expertise to solve themselves. The film takes the laziest route here, relying on the authoritative prowess and aura of veterans like Hanks and McKellen to continually be fountains of knowledge, to know the answer to every question from the clueless vessel of Tautou, who doubles as the viewer. Everyone knows Hanks and McKellen, so we don't doubt what they say, and when they are confronted with a seemingly baffling puzzle to solve, their historical and intellectual know-how isn't questioned. This is of course film-making at the lowest level; there are scenes where the two are basically narrating straight from the novel, talking directly at Tautou and therefore the viewer, making sure they are up to speed. Everything serves to move the film along. There is remarkably zero fat for something almost three hours long. Part of this is nonsensical padding; Sauniere's final cryptic message scrawled in blood is an anagram which leads to the Mona Lisa, which contains another anagram to another artwork, which leads to a key with another puzzle...and so on. If you take a step back all this mystery seems tedious and convoluted, and a few of the steps are unnecessary. But because the film is so brisk, never giving any breathing room but rushing from puzzle to puzzle, it doesn't ever feel like dragging. Our curiosity is swiftly and efficiently replaced by another, and there is never any time to really think or reflect.
The film format is visual, so Howard has gone above and beyond the book, gifted with a generous budget, to further add to the faux historical authenticity of the premise. The lavish flashbacks are clearly colour coded, with a slight wash to contrast so we know exactly what timeline we are experiencing. The characters narrate over them with the air of authority as if they were providing the voice-over for a historical documentary. Langdon's opening presentation is directed not only at his chirpy lecture audience, but also at the viewer, overturning all their preconceptions with a flashy barrage of symbols and their secondary meanings. Every mystery is given immediate priority; the novel presented a puzzle and solved it almost immediately, to the reader's satisfaction. When they do the little bait and switch on the plane, seconds later we see the washed out flashback explaining exactly what happened. This is low culture entertainment, but it certainly is effective.