Let's Talk Turkey

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2006)

As one of the 38 or so people in the world who HAVEN'T read the book and haven't the least desire to do so I'm unable to make any comparisons between page and screen; I did, however, suspect that any film which is as hyped as this has been would have its work cut out to live up to the hype and the early reviews did little or nothing to disabuse me but I went anyway because I like Jean Reno, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Audrey Tautou. Given the premise of male-female teaming up to accomplish something they could just as easily have called it the Da Vinci Co-Ed but that might imply even a scintilla of chemistry between Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou and thus run foul of the Trade Descriptions Act. I have no problem with the locations but one Louvre doesn't make a stunner and the best you can say for Ron Howard is that he knows which end of the camera to point at the action. I guess the extent of the mess this is can be gauged when a ham like Ian McKellen takes all the notices. With luck it'll get a substantial piece of its neg cost back in this first weekend but after that the word will surely be out and they'll be staying away in droves.