Excellent, but it is only a movie after all!

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2006)

It's become the fashionable thing to knock this movie; it's as if people go into the cinema actually wanting to hate it! After all the hype I finally got to see the film. I love the book, being a great fan of conspiracy theories and a good ripping yarn, so I was straight off to the cinema as soon as I could after it opened.
This is one of those films that you know the critics are going to hate simply because of the hype and the publicity surrounding it. Being a subscriber to satellite T.V. the schedules were bombarded and chock full of Da Vinci Code documentaries either agreeing or disagreeing with the theories in the novel. I must admit I found it amusing watching certain religious types being up in arms about the book and literary types being sniffy and snobbish because how dare a book be so popular as to have the great unwashed reading!!! As expected the critics panned it, the academics hated it and all of them missed the point. It's a NOVEL, not a historical documentary! Everyone should get over themselves and appreciate it for what it is. A popcorn thriller and a bloody good one at that! Some chunks are missing because you can never fit the full book into the film but it doesn't detract from your enjoyment or understanding of the plot.
The central performances are solid and it looks as if Ian McKellen is having an absolute ball hamming it up as Sir Leigh Teabing. The script is okay without being stellar but it grips you in all the right places as a good thriller should. It may not be on anyone's best ever movie list but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good adaptation well worth two and a half hours of anyone's time. Don't be led into not liking it because it's fashionable to, watch it with an open mind and you will not be disappointed, but it won't change your life. Well it is fiction, isn't it?!