Terrible adaptation

Rating: 3/10 (22 May 2006)

For the record, I absolutely love the book. Now for the bad news, this movie is one of the worst book adaptations I've ever seen. They managed to take an enormously exciting book and turn it into a boring, confusing, ignorant movie.
I'll just give a few examples. For one, the book's theme is the importance of the sacred feminine and how women should be viewed as equals if not superior to men and yet Sophie (the main feminine character) is pretty well portrayed as a moron. She is supposed to be a genius cryptographer and yet she really adds nothing to their quest. In the movie, Langdon figures out to look behind 'Madonna on the Rocks' not Sophie, Langdon discovers the address on the back on the key not Sophie, Langdon figures out the mirror script not Sophie. In the book Sophie figures all of these things out and for some reason Ron Howard takes that away.
Another thing that irritated me was the deletion of one of the riddles. They completely got rid of the first cryptex which, in the book, helps to show Sophie's importance in the quest.
They also make Bishop Aringarosa (a character that I really like in the book) look like a bad guy. In the book, he is just trying to save Opus Dei when the Catholic Church decides to cut all ties to them. He even confesses everything to Fache and practically turns himself in. However, in the movie, they have him invent this lie about Langdon confessing to him about the murders. They also have him as a part of the League of Shadows (which isn't even in the book). At the end of the book, you understand his motivations and admire his character. At the end of the movie, you don't like him at all.
Oh, and did I mention they change the whole ending? Instead of Sophie remembering her childhood, finding her grandmother, reuniting with her brother, and then her grandmother explaining to Langdon that the grail isn't there anymore; they invent this whole new ending where they go into a catacomb and find the Sangraal documents (which contradicts the book because the grail includes both the documents and the sarcophagus; the sarcophagus alone is just a coffin, it needs the documents to make its claim as Mary Magdalene, wife of Christ). Also, they make Sauniere not actually Sophie's grandfather in the movie, which is a pointless stupid change.
Also, here are some of the minor changes that still annoyed me very much: Silas doesn't have red eyes; they don't take a taxi through the garden of earthly delights; the plane takes off for Zurich instead of going to London all along; Sophie does her pathetic little slapping of Silas (which looks ridiculous); Teabing's dramatic exposure to Langdon and Sophie is ruined when they show him earlier as the Teacher; Fache is a member of Opus Dei in the movie, not in the book; Sophie and Langdon don't have their final kiss and plan to meet in a month; Sophie is just a Saint Clair, not a union of the last two divine bloodlines.
And even with all these complaints, I haven't even touched on the acting, which was sub-par; Langdon and Sophie have no chemistry together; etc.
All in all, this movie left me incredibly disappointed. Ron Howard had the easiest job in the world. The book is already written like a movie, all he had to do was shorten some conversations and put it on screen, but he failed to do that. I love the book, but I won't ever buy the movie.