Very disappointing adaptation of a good thriller.

Rating: 2/10 (20 May 2006)

Like 50 million other people around the globe, I devoured the book. I think it's great. Hokum, but wonderful hokum, and when was a thriller ever the worse for it's hokum content? So I went to see the film simply expecting to be entertained by the cinematic version of a good holiday read. Now, I'm not a demanding film-goer. I don't go and see films that I suspect I will find too challenging or boring, because I'm stressed enough by real life and when I spend my £5.50 to sit in the dark for two and a half hours, I simply want to escape from reality. Not a lot to ask, you might think? Well, it is if you go and see the da Vinci Code! Firstly, if you do go and see this film, be prepared to feel patronised. It seems rather unfortunate that during the process from book to screen somebody has obviously decided that film audiences are thicker than book audiences and that everyone who goes to the cinema is so stupid that they need plot points spelling out to them very slowly and carefully and repetitively. Oh, and most insultingly of all, boringly! Secondly, I'm sorry to say that I think one of the reasons the film is meeting with such critical derision and audience boredom is because of the casting. I know that the blame for the film not working really has to lie at the feet of the writer and director, but the casting of Tom Hanks as the man that Dan Brown describes in the book as a young Harrison Ford, essentially an action hero, creates a leaden feel from the opening moments. As I read the book, I was imagining Robert Langdon as more akin to Joe Flanigan from TV's Stargate Atlantis, who looks uncannily like a young Han Solo. But I certainly wasn't imagining someone who would be too paternalistic to win the feisty heroine! Yes, Audrey Tautou, feisty, not overwhelmed and terrified! For me, the film's only slight redemption was the arrival on screen of the ever reliable Sir Ian McKellen. But all he really managed to do was highlight the wooden acting of the rest of the cast, even the usually wonderful Jean Reno. It was all so painful to watch that I sat there thinking that a new line needs to be added to the old adage about never acting with children and animals; Never act with a British thespian unless you are one.
But look on the bright side. There were a few laughs. All raised by Sir Ian, inevitably. That is to say, the only intentional laughs of the evening were raised by him. For the unintentional ones, all I can say is - let the Cannes audience be your guide! THAT moment actually made me feel nauseated, patronised and appalled, but had I perhaps not been British, or had I been with a slightly more jocular crowd, giggles would doubtless have followed the squirming! However, if I really wanted a good laugh, I wouldn't have gone to see the film adaptation of a book that wasn't funny, but was a really good read. My advice? If you haven't read the book, spend your money on the paperback rather than a cinema ticket. And if you have read the book? Spend your evening re-reading it. You'll have a far better time than sitting there wondering quite how much more laboured the plot points could actually be.