Da Vinci Code (The) (2006)

I haven't read the book yet and, with a graduate-level theology background, I don't believe the core premise or its pseudohistory one whit, but The Da Vinci Code stands on its own cinematically. I don't understand any of the complaints I read before seeing this movie on the weekend after its release. Some say the plot drags: This is not Die Hard With A Vengeance, people, it's an intellectual detective thriller that maintains a steady (not relentless) pace with plenty of plot revelations and twists till the end. Some say the car chase scenes were slow: They were so fast-paced I wanted the movie to slow to half-speed. Some say Tom Hanks phoned in his performance and was having a bad hair day: He is playing a semeiotics professor, from Harvard no less; his character was a gregarious fashion plate, comparably speaking. In short, for those who find intellectual puzzles fascinating, not plodding, this is an excellent romp -- the cinematic version of a page-turner. Ian McKellen's character is spirited and complex. The butler did it! Oops, no he didn't. Paul Bettany, showing his glutes again (see A Knight's Tale), is ever chilling as the apostolic assassin. I loved Audrey Tautou in the French-language Amelie but that wasn't much of a speaking role; though her casting makes perfect sense because half of this film is in French, her accented English is so thick that it hampers her screen chemistry. Given all the two have been through by the end, one hopes Hanks' character would at least ask Tautou's for her phone number; nothing of the sort happens.

The movie's stream of pseudohistorical and contemporary criminal revelations (which I anticipated in general due to a familiarity with Dan Brown's arguments) makes for a grand modern detective yarn. Yes, it is largely historical but it is primarily fiction -- but should fiction be put forth that is endemically offensive to the majority of half the world's religious population? It is perhaps a sign that we are entering a post-Christian, post-modern society when The Last Temptation of Christ (wherein Christ, on the cross, fantasizes or hallucinates that he has wed Mary Magdelene and lives happily ever after) was prevented from release the first time due to Christians' cries of "blasphemy." The Da Vinci Code goes considerably further -- all on the specious premise of "Well, of course these controversial and completely fabricated speculations must be true, because that is exactly what the Church wants to prevent you from knowing -- a fact which, by their very denial, proves the theory right." (If you think this is logical, please retake Philosophy 101.) What's next, the blockbuster release of The Satanic Verses? One either understands the spiritual, contemplative, disciplined life -- that it is not politically or sexually motivated -- or one does not; this is not the place to debunk orthodoxy's also-ran gnostic precepts. However, it may help true believers to understand that the secret society and villains in this story, while members of the Church, are nevertheless villains and not representative of Opus Dei or of the Catholic Church. Five stars.