Not worth the fuss

Rating: 5/10 (16 June 2006)

I have to admit not being a fan of the book. In fact, I hated it. It can't deny it was entertaining to read, and you could clearly recognize it was made to be a best seller for its fast-paced formula of mystery, action and vague eroticism, but the only I can give to Dan Brown is that he is a genius of publicity  not a good storyteller, not even a good writer. It looked like this guy had just typed symbology and DaVinci in Google and stuffed all the results in the novel. Yet however, it has its fans, and I respect their opinions, but don't ask me to like it. I don't.
The DaVinci Code is a bad book, and though I enjoyed the movie a little more, I can't call it good either. With bad yet commercial source material, my expectations were subzero, and I wasn't surprised or anything. It's simply the novel, with a few tweaks here and there (more on that later because it's one of the few things I loved). The start is okay: it builds up some tension and shows off how good Ron Howard can be as a filmmaker, with these brilliant, story-of-the-character-in-15-seconds style flashbacks, which I found an excellent technique to shove aside all the unnecessary melodrama and annoying angst which riddled the book. The problem, though: after some downright boring bits, you just find yourself wondering when will it recuperate. It doesn't.
This movie takes itself too seriously. It's in serious need of a little sense of humour about itself and so do the two main actors about their characters. But once again, the standard 'you can't make a good movie out of a pile of rubbish' applies; so much cliché, after all, will never possess or deserve a third dimension.
Hanks kept looking confused all the way through, although I can't blame him  it's how I've always imagined Robert Langdon anyway , and Tautou (no matter how much I'm biased in her favour) plays her typical curious, cool & cute, but her character sometimes is just there, with not much to do or say. I guess the novel gave her more protagonism, but can you really call that something good?
Fortunately, the secondary actors are a lot more entertaining to watch. As always, Ian McKellen is brilliant, taking delight in playing flamboyant and eccentric sir Leigh Teabing in a great opportunity to make the audience smile, steal every scene from the boring protagonists and give the plot an okay turn. Jean Reno is always himself, and although I swear I can hear the question of 'what am I doing in this movie', the role of Fache didn't belong to anyone else. Alfred Molina gives an oddly refreshing performance and plays perfectly with that sneaky poker smile, although I just so wish we got to see more of him; and Paul Bettany is without a doubt my favourite: for he's the only character to truly display passion, emotional charge. He makes Silas so expressive and tortured and adds in that soft, sweet, slimy, intentionally unfocused tone which is not based on anything, nor does he owe it to nobody - not even Dan Brown. It's all his.
The movie _did_ accomplish something the novel didn't, for the book was indecisive when it came to who exactly was to be blamed for all the mess. 'Cause you know, the evil character just thought they were saving the Church, and evil albino assassins army aside the Opus Dei is cool. The movie made its message a little less blurry - while for example, the character of Aringarosa did come across as more greedy, twisted and manipulative, the police chief was a member of Opus without being the EBOL and Silas, in reality, was a victim of circumstance  and quite an insane one at that.
It's too bad that it was at least 30 minutes too long, and you couldn't really scratch them off anywhere. Wish the ending had been more agile or entertaining, 'cause after giving a not entirely satisfying cut to the main plot, I just wanted the movie to end.