Da Vinci didn't convince me!

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2006)

Okay, I decided to write a review of THE DA VINCI CODE, but I thought, golly gee, wouldn't it be great to do the critique, but do it in calligraphy in invisible ink on rare parchment paper, seal it in a container with a numerical lock so complicated that only a mathematical genius could decipher it and bury it in sacred ground at a location that can only be determined by solving an anagram created from a riddle written as a limerick and scrawled in blood on the back of a rare painting hanging in a museum that is protected by armed guards who will allow you to bypass security, but only if you can prove you belong to a secret society by telling them the password that is the answer to a question posed as a palindrome written in Hebrew and posted at the website dopeyopie.com.
But, then I asked myself, who in their right mind would be stupid enough to go to all that trouble just to learn the secret of what I think of the movie THE DA VINCI CODE -- as brilliant and insightful as my opinion ultimately might be. Of course, my little scavenger hunt is nothing compared to the conspiracies and counter-conspiracies whose gnarly tentacles thrive like kudzu in Ron Howard's movie based on Dan Brown's novel. It involves competing secret societies, both of whom seem obsessed with creating elaborate puzzles and word games designed to keep or uncover sinister schemes that will either save or destroy Christianity as we know it today. But just who in this ridiculously complex game of charades is supposed to be the good guys or the bad guys is open to interpretation. At any rate, there are tax codes that are easier to decipher than the rambling plots that unravel and tangle up again in this bloated narrative.
Tom Hanks, clearly miscast as a Harvard professor, plays a "symbologist" who, for reasons that are never made clear, becomes the unsuspecting contestant who is sucked into the rival convoluted conspiracies that center on the search for the Holy Grail, which we are told is a who and not a what. All this springs from the notion that Jesus Christ did not die a virgin, but married Mary Magdelene and sired a child and that created a lineage that survives today. It is but one of the film's innumerable plot holes that it assumes that after 2000 years and possibly 100 generations, only one possible offspring would exist and not the thousands that are likely. And if you don't figure out just who that one possible offspring is within the first half hour, than you definitely are not heavenly inspired, because that is the least mysterious mystery in the story.
All the densely packaged clues, theories, wild guesses and "evidence" that supposedly reveal that the Christ story is a hoax are tossed at the audience in a fast and furious manner, yet the story still seems to drag on endlessly. And after going the long way around, it is obvious at the end that the revelation of the "truth" is not likely to make one bit of difference: It would take a lot more than this junk theology to cause the devout to doubt or the church to crumble. Seldom will you find a film's ending more deserving of a shrug and an indifferent "So what?" It is, however, obvious why the Catholic church among others are offended by THE DA VINCI CODE because it does suggest that the churches willful have lied about Jesus' divinity as a cruel excuse to brutalize others and commit church-sanctioned murder. And while it is refreshing, in this era when so many movies are constructed like insipid video games, that here is a movie and book that tries to appeal to the thinking man. But strip away the sanctimonious pseudo-religious prattle and it is just another film about nailing the evil corporation (i.e., the Catholic Church, Inc.) that is selling a product deemed to be defective (i.e., religious faith). That aside, THE DA VINCI CODE is little more than ludicrous neo-feminist propaganda: the piety of women versus the chauvinism of men.
Yet, if Jesus did marry, what's the big deal? Becoming a husband and father would only confirm belief in the power of marriage and family and it would not necessarily contradict Jesus' virgin birth, his divinity or the validity of his philosophical teachings. The true mystery is why the churches have so foolishly acted as the PR agent for the film. All the indignant protests and hysterical calls for boycotts have done nothing but create book-buying, ticket-selling publicity that has drawn in millions of gullible consumers who otherwise wouldn't have cared less about this rather silly story.
And in its pursuit if the Holy Grail, DA VINCI's quest is neither as funny as Monty Python's or as exciting as Indiana Jones'. And for that matter it isn't even as amusingly bad as the similarly themed HUDSON HAWK. Despite its arrogant self-importance, the film doesn't even meet minimum standards as decent entertainment; so let's just say that DA VINCI isn't up to code.