Jon Monsarrat review: sort of silly

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2006)

The Da Vinci Code struck me wrong in a few ways, which was disappointing. I haven't read the book and I got the impression that possibly in the book they would have gone into more detail with each of the puzzles. In the movies, the abbreviated puzzles just seemed to solve themselves too quickly.
More importantly, the motivations of the characters kept throwing me out of the movie. Why can't the police manage to capture the heroes? Why are various people trying to "cover up" various things? And why preserve a secret with clues and puzzles rather than just saying it straight out? The over-sized subtitles popped me out of the film, too.
So I spent most of The DaVinci Code with my mind on the theater instead of the movie. Also I didn't get a visceral sense for the (no spoilers) family tension plot, the conspirators plot, the father-son badguys plot... for some reason it didn't work for me, didn't draw me in. There was nothing wrong with the acting, I just think not enough time was given to develop the relationships. Perhaps this should have been a 3-hour film, or they should have taken out chunks of the plot complexity so that what remained could have been developed more.
Finally, the central secret of the film seemed sort of silly to me too. It all adds up to not really wowing me.
Who should see this film:
-- Fans of the book
-- Anyone else, but only on a rainy day when it's on cable Or better yet, just skip it. 5 out of 10.