Good but not Great

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2008)

I think the problem the makers had was trying to get the very convoluted story across with reams of dialogue. The nature of the story demands this but it takes a while and doesn't have the 'page-turner' effect of the book as these revelations, which happen often, are not visually appealing but portray images when you read them. I think they did as well as could be expected getting a complicated story to the screen intact. Silas the monk is menacing, Jean Reno as Bezu Fache could have been made more of but as is the nature of the story, it doesn't lend itself well to character development, the main focus of the film is on the revelations, which are just spoken words. Ian McKellen is excellent as Sir Leigh Teabing, the eccentric English symbologist who turns a bit nasty and Audrey Tatou as Sophie Neveu is exactly how you would have imagined her to look whilst reading the book. Tom Hanks's voice was uncannily similar to that of the voice the reader used when Robert Langdon was speaking. Also, I didn't feel(as some others have said before me) that the dialouge was wooden, nor did I feel that you had to read the book to like this movie. I also thought that you can be Christian and like this film, because it has good suspense,and a very good plot, and if you don't like the theories, you don't HAVE to believe them.