Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code

I have to admit that I did not read this book. I know, this makes me about the only person in the world not to pick up Dan Brown's multi-multi-million selling tome. I think, however, that this enhanced my viewing pleasure of the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code" which hit theaters like a speeding train just yesterday.

You may have heard that this movie was nearly booed off the screen at the Cannes film festival. Well, I don't think this movie necessarily deserves that kind of treatment. Is it the best Tom Hanks movie? No, far from it. Is it even the best Ron Howard movie? Not even close. For that, you should watch "Cinderalla Man" which was released last year. Is it an entertaining film? For me, it was.

The folks at Cannes tend to be a little hostile towards big American films. The fact that someone thought this movie should actually open the Cannes Film Festival, an honor usually reserved for a French film, was probably a bit of a mistake on the movie-makers part. I think the pretentiousness of that move may have tainted the opinions of those critics. Dan Brown's book, and this movie, has always been a story for the masses. It is pure pop culture and not meant to be anything more than that. On that level alone, I think this movie works.

The story, in case you are like me and have been living under a rock since 2003, involves a murder in the Louvre museum in Paris. Tom Hanks plays a symbologist named Robert Langdon who is called in to decipher the strange symbols written in the victims blood. How someone, even one who was gut-shot, could write all of those symbols and letters, hide keys and then conveniently die in a pool of light I have no idea but such things need to be put aside with a movie like this.

Dan Brown's book has been criticized for being short on character development, long on talking, and ham-handed with the action scenes and cliffhangers. The movie does not do much to change this. Tom Hank's performance seems strangely stilted, as though he isn't really sure if he should be doing this movie. However, given the character he plays is an academic in over his head, maybe that is how the character should be played.