Well Worth It

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2006)

The Da Vinci Code is an outstanding film. Ron Howard does an excellent job of direction. The timing is nicely paced, the acting is outstanding, the scenes are beautifully shot and the film feels right.
Ian McKellen steals the movie. McKellen is superb and his performance is definitely worth an Oscar bid. I enjoyed every single moment that McKellen was on the screen. This is McKellen's best work since he played Gandolf and he took full advantage of every second that he was on film.
While the church, and the ignorant religious zealots, are condemning this movie; there is nothing in this film that exhibits an anti-church or an anti-Christian movement. The film does show the ignorance of some members of the church in their quest to gain more power over people. The movie shows the evils that religious intolerance can cause when one priest says that Christ sacrificed himself for the betterment of mankind and so shall his descendants. The priests talks about this to assure himself that it is right, and good, to kill innocents in the name of the church. While this is going on, that same priests talks about how the Vatican would punish him, and his cohorts, if they found out what they were doing. Therefore, the movie shows that it is not the entire church, but a small part, doing the evil things. As intelligent people, we see that this is true in all religions. This is exhibited in the news on a regular basis. There is nothing in this movie that would make a person question their faith--but there is enough that may make someone take an interest in Christian history. Is that a bad thing? I do not think so.