The Da Vinci Code: A Review of the Most Controversial Film of the Year

Adapting the immensely popular Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code into a motion picture was no easy task, but screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and director Ron Howard made a valiant, if not quite excellent. The movie stars Tom Hanks as Professor Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as cryptologist Sophie Neveu, and Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing. The cast does a tremendous job with the script, especially McKellen in the role as the mentor-turned-villain Teabing.

As with any movie based on a novel, watchers are going into the film knowing the basic plotline: Langdon is implicated in the murder of Louvre curator Jacques Sauniere and narrowly avoids arrest by French police Captain Fache thanks to Sophie. It turns out Sauniere’s last message was a secret code meant for Sophie, his granddaughter, and that Fache interpreted the last line, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon,” to mean that Langdon was the killer. As Sophie and Langdon go on the run, they begin unraveling a mystery surrounding Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a mystery that the church and others want control of.

While fans of the novel will be pleased with most of the film, there are places were Goldsman’s changes to the storyline don’t make a lot of sense. Taking out the second cryptex puzzle is understandable. Why show the characters solving what is, essentially, the same puzzle twice? However, adding in a conversation between Langdon and Sophie where Langdon tells her that Jacque Sauniere was not her real grandfather is a bizarre change that doesn’t really make sense. Fortunately, there are very few of these odd changes in the movie, certainly not enough to make Dan Brown fans avoid the film.

The directing style of Ron Howard fits the film very well, and his scenes are full of intense action. The car chase scene, for example, has Sophie driving her tiny car up onto the sidewalks of Paris and dodging between garbage trucks. Howard perfectly crafts each scene, giving us the wide, awe-inspiring shots when needed (like at Rosslyn Chapel) and the close up, emotional shots during all the tense moments.