How Could It Have Been Any Better?

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2006)

Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE was long and complicated, so I didn't expect the film to cover it exactly. I don't expect any movie to mimic any book word for word. Only Kenneth Branaugh's HAMLET did that.
The movie adaptation turned out better than I could have expected. Sure they changed some parts. Some parts, of courses, were left out. Overall, they compacted the story. It, however, still worked well. Ron Howard kept the Plot tight, and not one piece of dialogue was wasted.
Tom Hanks played an excellent, realistic college professor. No slickness and No glossy Oscar-worthy clichéd nuances. He played the role straight like it needed. All of the other actors did equally well, but I hold special recognition for Jean Reno and Paul Bettany. Reno WAS Fache and Bettany did his best to balance eerieness and sad piety in Silas.
One warning: YOU MUST PAY ATTENTIION. Like A BEAUTIFUL MIND, 12 ANGRY MEN, and the best episodes of LAW & ORDER, you can't wallow in the clouds while sleepwalking through this film. The best plotted movies waste nothing. Each shot, nuance, word, transition, and musical note forwards the plot or adds to the characterizations.
Again, I don't think the production could have turned out better. No movie adaptation of a book will ever turn out perfectly, especially not one as over-hyped as this one.