Overall a good enough job...

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2006)

First of all, I totally hate it when people criticise this film on the basis of its storyline....That is THE BOOK!!! So, I am not gonna give my opinion on the BOOK here....just the film. Of course though, I would like to compare with the book at times, but that's different. Let's see: First of all, the main good thing: Excellent acting by Sir Ian McKellan and Paul Bettany. Well done, gents.
Then the main bad thing: The acting by Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautoo. I love Tom Hanks, but whether it was due to bad direction, bad screenplay or poorly written script, his portrayal of Robert Langdon was far from perfect. His lines were poor AND poorly executed. The film had so much scope for facial expressions of surprise, etc and even some funny moments. But it had none of that. Leigh Teabing's "The more penises you have the higher you rank. Boys will be boys." was about THE only comedy element in the film, whereas in the book (and hereby start my comparisons), there were more comedy moments. And I had imagined Langdon and Sophie's characters to have more to do in that sense and more (which would have made the film more entertaining) than just look like puppets / robots. Their characters were very lacklustre. They lacked emotions. They lacked depth.
Fair enough, Ron Howard only had about 2 and a half hours to portray the characters AND tell us a complicated story. But even then, I had imagined better in my head when I had seen the film Which brings us onto the debatable bits (the dark side)...
Was it just me or did the film seem to assume you had read the book? I know millions of people have indeed done so, but that is no reason to assume. Some parts of the film are not well explained at all. I mean, what on Earth is one meant to understand from Silas's flashback of his life?? That would make no sense at all for someone who had not read the book.
Talking about flashbacks, I had gone to see the film knowing that there were flashbacks even to the days of Mary Magdalene and had initially thought it a bad idea, but it kind of worked well enough.
Now the main debate: How true to the book, and, really, does it matter? A lot of the minor changes helped rather than hindered the story telling overall. Most of them made me start to cringe and then wave them off as acceptable. So that's good so far...
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The order in which things are revealed to Sophie in the film is all over the place. And that kinda annoyed me. But it always worked out in the end, so that was okay as well.
The fact that Langdon is made to sound anti-grail-theory (I know, not exactly, but kind of) left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it made no sense. Why does he take Sophie to Teabing if he does not believe in the grail?? But then at least that showed both sides of the story for a more balanced view on things in the film that it is in the book. And quite frankly, at the rate some people out there are ready to accept every word written in the book, that seems like not such a bad thing. ((And to those same people: what's with the refusal to believe blindly in the church if you then go out and believe Brown blindly??!! But I wasn't gonna comment on the book, so stop there.I did totally enjoy the book myself)) Then they chopped out a whole bit - in the film, there is no cryptex within cryptex. We go straight to the 2nd one. I agree it was probably needed to shorten the film, but also does not help explain how Teabing realised that he was gonna need help solving the riddles, so attacked Silas and kept Langdon and Sophie with him longer...
And then the last bit: I totally do not understand why it had to be changed. But in a way the alternate ending was not so bad. And not so different really. So I do not mind.
OVERALL, pros and cons (no puns intended). One can't complain about the far-fetched storyline, nor the double endings, as that is how the book goes. Not the best film of the year, but it was okay. Watchable, though not as enjoyable as the book. Could be better, but not bad....