Mini Review - The Da Vinci Code

I haven’t even started the review yet!

But yes, you’ve read that title right, this is the Da Vinci Code

So, pre-requisites for reviewing this movie:

No, I haven’t read the book by Dan Brown, I’m judging this on its own merits.

In terms of religion, I am atheist, so I’m not going to dwell on the religious aspect of the movie that has made it so controversial.

With that out of the way, released in 2006, the Da Vinci Code was financially successful, earning nearly $760m on a $150m budget. But critically it was less successful with a rotten 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average 4.8/10 score. It was also nominated for a razzie for worst direction but lost to M Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water (and rightfully so) but my thoughts are to follow.

Jacques Saunière, curator of the Louvre is killed by an albino monk named Silas. Somehow Jacques Saunière manages to pose his own body in the shape of the Vitruvian man for no reason and leave behind cryptic clues which bring together historian and code expert Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Jacques Saunière’s granddaughter Sophie (Audrey Tautou) to solve the clues to find the holy grail. But Robert is (and I bet you’ve never heard this one before) framed for the crime he didn’t commit (by the flimsiest of evidence by the way) so they end up on the run from the police and hunted down by Silas.

So, let’s talk briefly about the religious side of this. They certainly take their creative liberties with history and religion to serve the plot. The plot is very deeply ingrained in Christianity, especially in regard to certain atrocities. That has made this movie controversial to the point where it’s been banned in several countries. Whilst I am not specifically offended by this as I’m not religious I do understand why people are offended by this. It would also be kinda hypocritical to bash this movie on this ground because I wrote the 12 deaths of Christmas.

But what legitimately does offend me is just how boring this movie is. At over 2 hours long you’d think it’d have time to let the story flow but not really, there are massive exposition dumps throughout the entire movie. Some have praised this as a smart movie but I don’t agree. A smart movie gives you just enough detail around its story that you can fill in the blanks yourself, or leaves things open to interpretation. Something like Mad Max: Fury Road is a smart movie in that regard. This movie does not give you room for thought, every goddamn piece of the puzzle is given to you and there’s not really any room open for thought. It doesn’t present moral quandaries where there aren’t right answers, this is not smart, it’s boring!

And speaking of boring, the mysteries of the goddamn movie. They present a few, you really don’t have to wonder about who killed Jacques Saunière, since Silas is a prominent character in the movie with his own scenes, so that one’s a bore. Who is ‘The Teacher’ who’s ultimately behind everything? Gee, could it be the only other character in the movie who knows anything about what’s going on? Played by Ian MacKellen who, despite being a machine for exposition, is still the best thing about this movie? Yes? NO F*CKING SH*T. What’s the pass-code to the box? Gee, thrilling. Apple, it turns out to be Apple. Who is the Holy Grail? Yeah, the Holy Grail is person in this movie. Gee, I wonder since everything else is blatantly obvious could it be the only woman in the main cast. Yes? Wow, how engaging?

Speaking of main cast, the two don’t share a lot of on-screen chemistry and there’s a good reason, there’s not a lot of character between them. What do we know about Robert? He’s a historian and code expert and he’s claustrophobic because of an incident involving a well. That’s nice, but took Ian MacKellen to even explain that. What do we know about Sophie, aside from the bullsh*t from the end of the movie? Her parents and brother were killed in a car crash? She was raised by her grandfather but was estranged from him for reasons revealed later. But her personality? Pfft, very little.

Without reading the book, it’s hard to tell exactly where the problems lie in this adaptation, is it too faithful and too afraid to slim things down? Does it cut out the parts of the book that develop character and help us empathise with the leads? Does it combine multiple expository passages? I’m not sure, if anyone has read the book feel free to comment, even if you like the movie.

But for now, I don’t think this is a very good movie. It’s boring.

Rating 30/100