All the visuals, not much of the substance from the book

Rating: 4/10 (22 May 2006)

I have no idea why Hollywood is so afraid to write a straight adaptation from book to film (it works for Harry Potter), but they seem to feel the need to change a bunch of things that made the book great. In this case, the Da Vinci Code was a wonderfully written book (setting aside religious arguments for others to fight). But Ron Howard removed scenes that would have made the movie better, added scenes that either didn't make sense or slowed the movie down (the most egregious toward the end of the movie) and all in all made an exciting book boring. This is of no fault to the visuals, which were stunning to say the least, and were really the only thing that lived up to the book. But the screenplay was bad, the editing a bit abrupt and the cast's performance, with some exception to Ian McKellen, were as flat as flat can be. I just felt that a movie based on a book this well written, with this much hype, with a cast this great, with a director this acclaimed and especially with a budget this huge should have been far far better than it was.