Seek The Truth

Rating: 7/10 (16 July 2007)

When respected American religious symbology expert Dr. Robert Langdon is summoned to the Louvre by the French version of the FBI, led by Captain Bezu Fache, he soon discovered that he is the #1 suspect for the murder of a historian Langdon had been scheduled to meet with. Assisted by a French cryptographer and government agent named Sophie, Langdon is challenged to decipher a chain of cryptic codes and puzzles, all the while trying to stay ahead of Fache's lawmen in a chase through the Louvre, and out into the Parisian cityscape, and finally across the channel to England. Can Langdon and Sophie decipher the nature of a secret dating back to Leonardo Da Vinci and earlier before those responsible for the historian's murder add them to their hit list? Like many people, I've read the book, which was really good with a decent ending. It's actually one of the better books I've read. I had my own perspective on the book and ran through the scenes in my mind as a chase thriller. What I've seen in the movie might not be close to this perspective as I thought as I hoped.
Like National Treasure, I wanted this movie to be a chase thriller. I wanted it to be thrilling and suspenseful like another other chase movie. Let me say this: The first hour was a let down. It was not suspenseful or thrilling. It was rather boring and uninteresting. It could've been a lot better. Well, it should have, after what the book has set up.
With that being said, let's move on to the remaining of the film (the second full hour). Now, it gets interesting. The boring string score you heard in the first hour gets more involved and suspenseful. There's more action and it's more intriguing. Since the second half of the movie is more than the first half, I liked the movie.
Tom Hanks' performance was decent, not at all that great. On the other hand, I liked Audrey Tautou's performance. The supporting casts, like Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Paul Bettany, were also decent. I didn't really mind the revisions in the film. It wasn't annoying or that at all different from the book. I have to say, though, that if I had not read the book, the movie would have been confusing.
This isn't a great adaptation as Harry Potter, but it is decent. The movie had some good special effects, great production design, and some good cinematography. Yeah, I liked National Treasure a lot better but if you're a fan of the book, you might as well see this and hope what you get is good.