So Dark the Con of Man: Da Vinci Code on the Rocks

When I first read The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown a few Summers ago, over the course of no more than a couple of days, I must admit, I felt as if the material had smacked me in the face and opened up a completely new world of ideas for me. The whole concept of Mary Magdalene being the wife of Jesus Christ, and carrying his child was astounding. 

Having grown up very loosely protestant, and having seen films like The Last Temptation of Christ, The Passion of the Christ, and my personal favorite, the film production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar (not to mention the several stage productions of that and Godspell) the introduction of something so wild was quite an experience, which led to several hours of internet research and all kinds of discussion of the topic.

So now, it's a couple of years later, and Ron Howard has brought Dan Brown's amazing "historical religious suspense thriller" to the big screen, which brings up two points. One being that the movie is a mediocre, run of the mill treasure hunter movie that happens to bring up some pretty outrageous "information", and the second being that the book really wasn't as great or exciting as I remember it. Sure, I'll admit I did like the book, and I still do, it's just that,  looking back I feel the book was just average, a fictional regurgitation of ideas brought up in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, whose writers recently sued Dan Brown. 

Their case was legitimate, considering the fact that Dan Brown pretty much took the "non-fictional" ideas from their book, and put them into a suspense thriller. Though, it's not as much Dan Brown's fault as it is the readers and the publicists and such who made such a big deal out of the content contained within the pages of "the code". It's also a bit ridiculous that the judge who ruled in favor of Brown, included his own "code" in the ruling report, a bit unprofessional, and also a bit biased, if you ask me.