Excellent film! Detailed and emotionally charged.

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2006)

What a wonderful wonderful film. Highly intellectual and will be of special interest of those who know religious and European history. This really teases the mind. I did not read the book and yet fully followed the story line with it's enormous amount of historical data. I was held in complete suspense as the story unfolded it's self.
The film is fully Ron Howard. Wonderfully shot, emotionally charged and intellectually appealing. Tom Hanks is at his best, fully allowing you to suspend you state of disbelief. To add spice to the cast, Ian McKellen is superb. Now place Audrey Tautou in the mix and you have a cast with wonderful chemistry.
You do not have to religious to appreciate the possibilities of this story. Especially with the very ego centric and political religious organizations that abound around us today. They all seem to have the matra of "Hurray for our side". In the real world, the church has long been known to hide secrets of history, as with the more well known issue of books being removed from the official bible. Even the catholic "bible" is different from the "standard" bible. The point is there is enough known politics of the church to fuel the possibilities and provoke the mind.
Ignore the critics on this one and GO GO GO. They do not think you are smart enough to appreciate the wonderful detail.