Interesting movie, okay but not great.

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2006)

This thing goes too long, you wind up wondering just who the redhaired bank guy was working for, and the 'escapes' were really kinda SAD. Slow motion in a truck time-Again! What, time-lapse car chases not good enough for you Gazzo? Ummm...no.
The movie itself? Interesting concepts, great scenery, decent cast, bad writing, some miscasting too. What happened to Tom Hanks here? They might as well've hired Michael Keaton or Dan Ayckroyd to play this role. He just contributed Nada to it. The little brunette was cute but you wondered if she knew what was going on, too. Ian McKellan was a hoot, Gandalf again doing his thing. Our albino guy from 'A Beautiful Mind' well, he just sorta shows up and kills people. Seemed to be a nervous wreck. And what was Doc Ock doing in this? His role seems to be cut right down, he's a fine talent but given little to do and winds up being rather shunted aside towards the end too. Ditto Jean Reno. He came off as being a schmuck that turns 'good' late. Hmmmm okay.
From this you might think I hated it. No no no no no. I enjoyed the flashbacks to the first Crusade, Isaac Newton's funeral, Constantine, etc. That stuff was all good. I liked watching them shuffle along the consipiracy w/ Kings, scientists and the like all being in on the act. It was kinda cool to try and follow the conspiracy threads too and see which character was really on whose side. It wasn't always easy to tell.
Here's the problem. As a longtime Byzantine history nut, I can tell you that the central premise-Constantine waved his magic wand and Voila the Catholic Church buried Magdalene/Mrs Christ into oblivion-that's bogus in the extreme. Constantine Was a Christian for a good chunk of his life. He had no more ability to force church doctrine then than John Paul II could. Buying into such obscure legends ala Mary M being his wife, their kid coming w/ her to France, winding up somehow tracing lineage in an illiterate society for centuries, then marrying into the inbred, short-lived, fueding goober Merovingians--this just doesn't add up. Why not believe St Thomas personally sailed to India and started a church there? Or Andrew to Scotland? Paul to Portugal? What of the Veronoica Cloth? What of the Byzantines and their mountains of relics thru the ages? What of the early church fathers ala Iraneus and Origen who pre-dated Nicea by over 100 years each and clearly wrote of Christ's divinity etc? Selective cherry picking of certain apocrypia of being 'true' and dumping everything else is just as bad, seems to me, as being a fundamentalist and buying into the Bible w/out a shred of modern perspective. It just doesn't wash.
I also found the whole 'Templers found 1000 year old relics and got rich that way' to be silly. Really? The First Crusade happened due to the Byzantines losing a Gettysburg like battle in the far eastern range of their Empire to the Seljuks at Manzikert, in 1071. THAT scared the crap outta Europe. THAT is what freed up the church to divert these nobles, knights and petty barons eastwards to chase after land, money, trade rights and of course, salvation. NOT some hair brained 'dig up the tomb of Mary M.' wild good chase.
Anyways. I've skipped talking about the movie itself. It does what it sets out to, but then has three endings, goes on a half hour too long, and loses interest on the way. Ron Howard was a director for hire here and while he does what he was hired for, you kinda think Oliver Stone or even Michael Bay(!!) would have been better choices.
**1/2 for the flashbacks, scenes set in the Louvre etc. and just because.