Da Vinci's Movie Debut: The Da Vinci Code is Actually a Good Movie..

Here's the thing, I did not read the book, but I actually enjoyed the movie.  For the most part, Ron Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" is a tolerable 149 minutes, mostly reliant upon a fantastic scavenger hunt of clues, with Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou leading the way.  

The book is 454 pages, so screenwriter Akiva Goldsman had a greal task ahead of him and from what I could tell the gist of it was succeeded.  Hanks portrays a famed symbologist who is summoned to the Louvre after a murder leaves a man naked with symbols and phrases all around.  

Enter his granddaughter (Tautou) to help aide Hanks decipher what means what and who is who.  Each clue is beautiful and breathtaking, seeing as most of it has to do with Da Vinci's art.  And the phrases and biblical references are very interesting.  As for the "attack" on the Catholic church, Jesus, and his divinity, that seems a tad slighted.  

I was born Catholic, and although alot of what this movie is implying could make me go to church for a month, for the most part I took from the movie what it was, a movie.  A Hollywood movie.  As for anything else, it is up to the individual audience to judge for their own beliefs.   

What is most entertaining about the movie is that it makes you think, and thinking isn't too horrible, is it?  The whole "this clue leads to the next" is fun, and although some parts of the movie are silly, like Tautou driving successfully backwards through a city to lose policemen, and Hanks' character suffers from claustrophobia never really connects to the story, but all in all, it is a deceit film and the best part is, alot of the exclusive filming access that the Ron Howard got to shoot the film allows us to see exquisite parts of Europe and art, it's like going on vacation without the flight!  This movie is definitely worth going into your ticket stub collection.