Darn Good Fun

Rating: 7/10 (29 November 2014)

I know this movie (and book) gets a bad rap for being overly- pretentious, but darn it all, I am very entertained by this flick.
For those of you living under a rock, The Da Vinci Code is a treasure hunt going from the Louvre in Paris to various ports of call in France and England. The fun is trying to figure out the clues before they are revealed. Even years later, when I know the basic plot, I had forgotten the specific clues, so I had fun trying to remember them.
Tom Hanks is watchable, as always, as Robert Langdon. It is said that you can see Hanks thinking on the screen and it is VERY helpful for this movie as that is what he does most of the time. He is ably aided by Jean Reno, Audrey Tautou and Paul Bettany. The joy to me was watching Ian McKellen hamming it up as scholar Sir Leigh Teabing. It must have been fun for McKellen to play a comic book character without having to put on spandex or a long white beard.
This is not Ron Howard's best job as director. The movie is overly long and takes itself just a bit too seriously. I am sure that he was under immense pressure to stay true to a very popular book, but I would have liked it if he would have just had more fun with it.
Despite that, I enjoyed myself - and you will too.
7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis).