Ron Howard, my wrath is upon thee

Rating: 3/10 (8 July 2006)

I cannot hide the fact that I WAS expecting this film for quite some time, and I WAS expecting something really good. I had very high hope for this movie, Ron Howard being the director, Hanks, Reno, Prochnov and McKellen being the main characters and a few years of time given to make this thing. I also cannot hide my disappointment when I saw it. What is more, I intend to show my disappointment in this humble review. First of all, the script is chopped into little pieces, I believe in order to somewhat imitate the original novel. However it does certainly not serve the production well. The action is quick, that's true, but all the rest totally sucks. The dialogs are meaningless because the action goes on "without thinking" I'd say. The viewer does not consider the things the actors say as significant to drive the action or create a mysterious atmosphere, a chilling one or whatever (I read the book a long time ago, by the way). Secondly, I was really confused by the actors' performance. I said to myself "Tom Hanks and the gang can't possibly mess this up, there's no way something like that would happen". Again, I was left speechless after the movie, and it wasn't because of my utmost admiration. The actors are surprisingly weak and uncool, not one of them showed anything above an awful sope opera (then again, sope opera characters can at least imitate extreme emotions). I was especially sad by the acting of Reno and McKellen as they are my favorites in this production, and they have always made me admire their work, no matter what. Next, the music..... WHERE IS IT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD? Music is one of the most important issues of a movie, it cannot be omitted like some petty minor role. Needless to say, the scriptwriter himself tried to be very witty, but it didn't work out. What he was trying to do was twisting the facts presented in the book (I still can't even fathom why) and make some kind of deranged version of The Da Vinci Code strictly for those who haven't read the book and don't know the brighter side. Overall, this is some kind of piece of art and it pains me to give it a whole big 3.