The Da Vinci Code

Remember when this story was such a big deal?

I remember back in the early 2000s when Dan Brown's novel, the DaVinci Code was the nations top seller. People were sold by its short chapters, and intricate puzzles hidden in plain sight. That used to be the big thing wasn't it? Ancient secrets hidden in our monuments, our art, or the Declaration of Independence.

But another huge part of this book was the religious backlash that came out because of it. I come from a pretty religious household and I know many members of my family condemned this book as sacrilegious. You had people questioning their faith over the ideas brought up in this book.

And then they made a movie and everyone seemed to kind of forget after that.

Now for me, I don't even think The Da Vinci Code was even the best of Dan Brown's books, but I did read it and I thought it was a really good adventure story, but was it really so anti-religion?

Well you can breathe a breath of fresh air because I haven't read the book since 2003 so I will not be comparing the movie to the book... at least not as much as I usually do when I compare books and movies. As simple as that book is to read, some people did not read it and have only the movie to go off of to tell this story.

The Da Vinci Code follows the story of a symbologist named Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks). He is in Paris giving a presentation on symbols when he is called to the Lourve to the scene of a crime.

The curator of the Lourve is found murdered and placed in suspicious circumstances. His body is the first clue in a mystery that brings him through famous icons of history, especially in renaissance art.

No seriously, I think this story brought a new renaissance to renaissance art because I'll be honest, I wanted to go to the Lourve, I wanted to see the Mona Lisa myself, I wanted to see Da Vinci's paintings and see if there was a weird mystery behind it. And I have to applaud a movie for no other reason than it got people interested in art.

The problem with this film is that it came out a few years after National Treasure but you can kind of tell its banking off the success of that franchise, but the iconic locations and pieces of art just aren't as well known as the places and things they encounter in National Treasure so the movie fails in bringing in that wonder factor as much as Nicholas Cage did for us.

Langdon is joined by Sophie Neveu (played by Audrey Tautou) a cryptologist with the French police who helps Langdon when the French police believe that he is the one who murdered the curator.

The rest of the movie is a race to solve the mystery of the murder, solve the mystery of the ancient conspiracy, all while being chased by the Leon the Professional... or the French Police (by the detective is played by Jean Reno) and also the minions of a secret religious organization set on keeping their secrets hidden.

And of course, the person who is going to keep those secrets hidden the most is the sadist monk, Silas (played by Paul Bettany).

Here's the funny thing about Paul Bettany. He's always kind of been a thing.

Throughout the 2000s (and even a little bit before), Paul Bettany got work, whether it was A Knights Tale, or A Beautiful Mind, he's always been a thing.

And I don't think this role was his break out role, hell I don't even think Paul Bettany has really had his breakout role yet to make him a big name. But I do remember this being his big exposure, especially since his character was so strange and dark.

He plays a monk who is basically an assassin for a secret order of the Vatican. Its his job to silence anybody who breathes words of the conspiracy being brought forward in this story and overall, he's a pretty good villain.

Ian McKellan is also in this movie playing a colleague of Langdon's who is just as interested in this conspiracy as Langdon and Sophie are and helps them in solving the mystery.

Overall, this movie has a really good cast. Everyone gives a pretty good performance and the premise had to have been one of the most popular premises when the book came out.

Furthermore I felt like the movie was a pretty good adaptation of the book. Again, its been a while since I've read the book so I can't say if it was word for word (which it wasn't) but I can say I can recall some of the feelings I had from the book in certain scenes of this movie. I thought they did a pretty good job recreating those scenes for the big screen.

So why did this movie get such bad reception?

Well I kind of mentioned a part of it before. This movie came out really on the coattails of National Treasure which was a huge success. A treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence is a lot easier to comprehend and easier to connect with than renaissance art that the viewer may or may not know about.

Furthermore, a lot of the movie is exposition.

Now a lot of the book is exposition, but some of the best parts of the movie, in my opinion, are them sitting down with a convenient powerpoint Ian McKellan's character just happened to have pulled up and walking the audience through the mystery that they are solving.

However, there are A LOT of those scenes. And I think the issue that this movie has is that it reveals the secret right in the middle of the movie. Now with National Treasure they reveal that there is a huge fortune somewhere and that becomes the goal, the rest of the movie is clues leading towards the final goal. In other movies, the mystery isn't revealed until the end and there are clues leading up to that final reveal. The Da Vinci Code reveals their secret in the middle and there aren't enough notable places to go, clues to follow before the story kind of takes a turn and instead of the puzzles, it focuses more on the ideological implications of this story.

And I can totally understand how someone could get pissed about this movie possibly getting preachy or could be perceived in a bad light.

The fun parts are in the beginning when Langdon is figuring out the puzzles and anograms, but at a certain point, the story really starts to push one of two things. The first could be a line of thought that is very anti-catholic in nature, or its pushing its own mythology and a conspiracy behind it.

Now I actually kind of like the idea of the latter, and if you know the secret you know what I'm talking about, but the problem is, the movie (and the book) make it seem like the things being brought up about the Catholic Church, about Christianity in general are all fact. So if Dan Brown is trying to create a mythology, it becomes very muddled with what is true and what is fiction and either way, you alienate people.

The thing you have to remember, whether you have read the book, seen the movie, or are wondering if you should see it is you need to take all the information presented in this story with a grain of salt.

This at its core is a story of fiction and it takes a lot of liberties with history. Dan Brown did not write this book to piss people off or say all religion is a lie, he did it to tell a story.

If you accept it as an adventure story, you actually might enjoy The Da Vinci Code. And regardless of its validity or not, the movie does bring up some fun ideas about history.

The plot is a little bit disjointed and its not the best story structure you'll ever find, but the movie does have some good performances by Hanks, Bettany, and almost everyone else in the film. Just be sure that you're going into this movie with a disclaimer in your mind that some of this could be real and some of it is fiction. Its up to you to do the research and come to your own conclusions, not let a work of fiction do it for you.

And I will give the movie credit, at the end it really does have that message.

What I do like about the production story of this movie is that all the actors in it believe that it doesn't contradict any of their faith and beliefs and at the end of the day, it is a work of fiction.

At the end there is your great Tom Hanks speech about faith and fact. There is a difference and each side has their own validity. And yes, the story is fiction, but it does give way to its own interpretation.

But there's only so much you can talk about when it comes to this movie without delving into spoilers so I won't do that.

Have you seen The Da Vinci Code? What did you think about it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I really like Tom Hank's filmography. He's just a gem. Enjoy!

Man of Steel Sequels

So Batman v Superman is coming out soon. I have been over the moon excited for this movie since it was first announced at comic-con in 2012(?). I have been following it closer than any other movie that has been announced recently and I have incredibly high expectations for this movie. There have been multiple trailers that have come out in the past few months. Most have been good… one was not so good. But the overall consensus is that people are tentatively excited about this movie. I think it worries a lot of people, but I haven’t heard anybody say they want this movie to fail or they know its going to be awful. I think people are overall pretty excited for Batman and Superman to finally share a screen for the first time in motion picture history.

So let’s create a hypothetical situation right now and say that Batman v Superman ends up being good. Let’s say it’s as big as its building up to be and it launches this new DCCU that we all want to happen. What happens then?

Well we’ve seen the slate. We know that Suicide Squad happens which looks freaking awesome. That of course is going to be followed by Wonder Woman, which I haven’t written too much on but there have been clips showing some of the movie and of course we’ve seen Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in the Batman v Superman trailers, I think people are pretty excited for that movie as well.

On top of that its been announced that Ben Affleck is signed on for more Batman movies and he’s planning on directing them. Again, overly exciting.

The Justice League of course is going to be huge but the real thing I’m looking for in this news is, Where is my Man of Steel sequel?

Listen, I know not everyone was a huge fan of Man of Steel. Personally, I loved it. It probably has to be one of my favorite superhero films of the last decade and that’s putting in the running against movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight. Maybe I’m a little bit biased because I love Superman, but I want to see more Superman movies and it doesn’t really sound like that’s their priority over at DC.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m not happy with the slate. Hell we’re even hearing rumors of the Green Lantern movie being a buddy cop movie in space with Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Its going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to a lot of the things I’m hearing from the DCCU and how its forming.

But at the end of the day, all of this will have been started from the movie that not everyone was a fan of, and that was Man of Steel. The story of Superman!

Now they mentioned a long time ago that there is a plan for a Man of Steel sequel, it just doesn’t have a release date. There were rumors a couple months ago that George Miller, the director of Mad Max: Fury Road might be helming that sequel but that turned out to be untrue for now. Outside of that, Man of Steel 2 really hasn’t been that big of a priority for DC and I have to wonder why.

Is Superman really that unprofitable? Is it that hard to make a story surrounding Superman without the help of Batman or Wonder Woman?

I really don’t think so, and while I had my issues with the trailer of Batman v Superman, I think that it actually give us clues of what the future of Superman could look like. And believe it or not, its mainly from the part that I think people didn’t like as much in the trailer. Doomsday.

Now there have been theories floating around that perhaps this isn’t Doomsday, perhaps its Bizarro or just a Zod monster or something, but lets say for arguments sake that it is Doomsday. I think that this actually helps the Superman lore and furthering story more. Here’s why.

I mentioned this theory of mine a little bit in my rant on the trailer but the origin story of Doomsday is that he was created then killed multiple times over again so his DNA could be reutilized and strengthened to create the ultimate killing machine.

While I know there has to be some kind of interpretation of the character for the movies and it’s probably going to be different from the comic book version, I think that this is a pretty shotty version of Doomsday… if this is his purest form.

I think that Lex Luthor creates this Doomsday to destroy Superman. As we can see, he uses the remains of Zod and morphs him into something totally different. But as we can see, he’s not totally finished. My theory is that Lex was creating Doomsday for another purpose and in order for that purpose to be completed, he needed Superman defeated, hopefully by Batman. And if man won’t kill God, the Devil will do it. He is forced to pull his experiment out of the oven before its ready. It’s and that’s what convinces Wonder Woman to reveal herself. With the trinity assembled, they have an epic fight with the monster. Its going to be huge, but in the end, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are obviously victorious.

But the important part is what happens to Doomsday after Batman v Superman.

Like I said in my trailer rant, it would be stupid if this was the last time we saw Doomsday and while people are skeptical of Zack Snyder and the plan of DC with this cinematic universe, I have to imagine that they are smarter than we give them credit for.

So I think that Lex is going to recover the remains of Doomsday at the end of this and that will play into the Man of Steel sequels. Because you know, eventually, they have to adapt the Death of Superman. It’s long overdue, it’s the Superman everyone knows and loves and wants to see on the big screen, you have to bring Doomsday back because that is his claim to fame.

Now do I think that that is what they should do for the next Man of Steel sequel. NO. I’ve been saying over and over, they need to bring in Brainiac, they need to bring in Metallo, something that is a credible threat against Superman but we should see at some point, whether it is at the end of Batman v Superman or hinted at in one of the standalone films that proceed it, that Doomsday is still alive, or being rebuilt.

The Justice League is going to be split into two parts. There have been shots of Batman v Superman that have alluded to the inclusion of Darkseid and the planet Apocalypse in what seems to be a dream sequence. Obviously, Darkseid is going to be the main villain in Justice League. And that’s okay. We don’t need to have Doomsday be the main villain, especially if we’re using the time in between Batman v Superman, to really develop him as the best villain he can be.

But Doomsday isn’t the only reason we need Superman sequels.

One of the biggest complaints I have heard about Man of Steel is that it didn’t really develop Clark Kent as a character and instead just had Superman punch stuff and roam around as a beareded wanderer.

And while I feel like Batman v Superman is going to delve more into Superman as a character and his development to become the Superman we know and love, the movie is not a true sequel and is being shared between the two title characters. We need a standalone Superman movie and as much as I love Zack Snyder, it should be directed by somebody who can give us some awesome Superman action but develop the character of Superman.

It should be as personal of a story as Superman Returns was, but more interesting and filled with the action that we have been introduced to in Man of Steel. If you go back and watch Superman Returns, you may realize that its not necessarily a bad film, its just a bad Superman and superhero film. I mean his biggest challenge is a giant island that he lifts into space. There’s no real action in that movie. But what it does have is a very personal story about Clark Kent. Now was it done incredibly well? No, but it could have been. With someone who really cares about the Superman lore, knows the character and is willing to really push Henry Cavill, I think the Superman sequels are something that needs to happen in order to make a really great cinematic universe.

Now a part of me is worried because there was recently an article about Batman v Superman and how Warner Brothers might be a little bit worried about its success due to less than amazing receptions of early screenings. The good thing is that it even if Batman v Superman flops, the DC cinematic universe is not dead. Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman are in production and are trains that cannot be stopped. This universe will happen, it’s just a matter of how. Rumors are that they will move around the release dates in order to promote a standalone Batman film and pushing back the Justice League, and honestly, I’m okay with that.

I’m okay with them focusing more on individual movies and developing these characters before throwing them into a team up movie. I know DC wants their Avengers style team up film, but as long as they’re developing characters, creating good stories, and doing this all with care, I think I’m going to be totally happy with the DC cinematic universe moving forward.

But even still, lukewarm responses to Batman v Superman doesn’t worry me quite yet. This movie does not need to be the best movie ever made to make money. The movie will be successful just on the fact that there’s been so much hype about it, Batman is in it, and it is setting up so much. The only thing that could go wrong is if the movie is just god awful and word of mouth destroys it.

And I’m not going to pretend like that’s not a possibility. It is.

What I know is that regardless of what I hear about this movie, I will need to go in and see it myself and I feel like that will be the case for a lot of people. Regardless of how the movie is, this is Batman and Superman fighting one another. It’s something people have wanted to see for quite a while, and even if it isn not the movie we want, I really doubt there is nothing good about this movie, the trailer have been too good so far.

But what do you think? Do you think Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is going to fail? Do you think they should do a Man of Steel Sequel? What ever happened to the Shazaam movie? Not totally related, its just puzzling… they brought on The Rock to play Black Adam and since nothing has been heard about this film. Comment and Discuss below!

You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as requests for future reviews. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews from this blog. 

I'll leave you with this. Here's the footage of the new Wonder Woman film. This looks great and I'm very excited for it. Enjoy!

  

Final Batman v Superman trailer

Can this movie come out already?

We are just over a month away from the movie I have been excited about for way too long, ever since they announced it at comic-con back in 2013(?) I have been psyched for this movie. And we’re getting closer and closer and I’m losing my mind in excitement.

This is my most anticipated movie of 2016, more than Rogue One, more than Civil War, I am so excited for this movie.

Even after the last trailer that came out that showed Doomsday, I was excited for this movie still. I thought it wasn’t exactly a great trailer but it still got me pumped, it still had some good moments to it.

And now, they’re back to the parts that everyone is excited about and that is Batman fighting Superman, and this trailer was what the last trailer should have been.

The opening scene of this trailer is Batman doing his Batman-ing stuff and he’s flying in on the Batwing, he’s got Alfred (played by Jeremy Irons) in his ear, and he just kicks a crap ton of ass in the most brutal Batman fight sequence we’ve seen… and this is just the trailer.

Where the comic-con trailer was a trailer more focused on the struggles of Clark Kent deciding what kind of superhero he’s going to be, this is more focused on Batman’s quest to take Superman down. And this was something that I was calling for back when the comic-con trailer came out. I wanted to see Batman’s trailer and see how the two juxtapose one another.

The majority of this trailer is a bunch of quick shots so I don’t think this is going to be that long of a post, but there are a couple great moments worth mentioning.

Wonder Woman speaks

I think people are finally starting to warm up to Wonder Woman based on all of the footage we’ve seen of her from the BvS trailers and the footage we saw on the CW of the new Wonder Woman movie. However, we haven’t heard her talk yet and we finally do.

It’s not anything crazy, she has one line and while it’s trailer fodder, it’s not a bad line. I am just becoming more and more excited for Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman that I’m thinking she might become the subject of intrigue by the end of the movie. I think people are going to be clamoring for a Wonder Woman movie as soon as possible after this.

At least I hope.

Batman in general

From the opening scene to the rest of the trailer, this trailer was set up to be Batman’s trailer.

This Batman is going to be a brutal Batman with no restraint. He tries to run Superman over with the Batmobile and bounces off of him like a ping pong ball. This was something we’ve seen before but it was totally made up for with everything Batman does in this trailer.

In a way, the same way Batman was kind of the “bad guy” in the comic-con trailer, Superman is almost portrayed as the “bad guy” in this trailer and I love it. And of course it leads to the best part of the trailer.

Batman blocking Superman’s punch

The look that Henry Cavill gives is priceless, Batman looks menacing, its just a great scene that I’m sure will just be awesome in the actual movie. And it totally connects the arc throughout this trailer that shows that Batman at first try will probably be beaten by Superman… but all Batman needs is time and strategy and he’s on par if not better than Superman…

I am so pumped.

One last thing I will mention is that there was a distinct lack of Dawn of Justice allusions in this trailer outside of Wonder Woman popping up. No Doomsday, no Aquaman, this trailer is going back to the part that people are excited for, Batman v Superman.

However, we can’t really forget that Dawn of Justice is an element of this movie. Doomsday is still

going to show up. There are allusions to Darkseid and Apocalypse and there is the whole Wonder Woman appearing to help them do battle. As much as we’d like to say this movie is just a one on one fight between Batman and Superman, I’m nervous because everything that has come out about the “second half” of this movie, the Dawn of Justice side, has not been received very well.

I’m only worried that this movie has so much riding on it to set up a franchise and set up an expanded universe that it will fall into the same trap The Amazing Spider-man 2 did where so much was riding on it and it was stretched into too many directions.

This trailer shows us we have, at the very least, a great half of a movie focused on Batman versus Superman.

Like I said this is going to be a short rant but stay tuned because I will have another post about Batman v Superman coming up right after this. But what do you think about the final Batman v Superman trailer. Are you excited for this film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as requests for future movie reviews. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. I'm looking so forward to this movie because of course there's going to be a great battle on How it should have ended. Enjoy!

The Arrowverse Part 4: Theories (Multiverses)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Now this is all speculation based on what I’ve seen, what I know, and what I’ve heard. Some of these theories are based off of other people’s ideas so I don’t claim full responsibility for them but I’ll shape them the way I want to.

One of the best parts about the first season of the Flash is his ability to travel through time eventually by going so fast that he travels back. I’ve also heard news of there being multiple earths and different versions of characters in the Arrowverse in different dimensions.

And if we’re playing by those rules, theoretically, a different dimension could be the DC movie universe.

This explanation would be perfect for DC by a business standpoint because it allows them have their cake and eat it to. First and foremost, it allows for both universe’s maintain their autonomy, unlike Marvel with Agent’s of SHIELD and to a certain extent Daredevil and The Defenders.

While I have to give Marvel credit for doing something very new and advantageous by putting their TV and movie universes the same, it does have its downfalls.

Agents of SHIELD is based on the premise of a secret organization that exists and works in tandem with the characters of the movie universe. It is also an organization that Captain America: The Winter Soldier essentially tore to shreds.

Now I haven’t watched Agents of SHIELD so I don’t really know exactly how that whole exchange went and what the show is since SHIELD has essentially been dismantled from the events of the Winter Soldier.

Even Daredevil and Jessica Jones, though maintaining their autonomy with only vague references to the events of The Avengers, there’s a serious problem Marvel could find themselves in in the future.

Say Thanos finally comes to wreck havoc on the Earth and Tony is hiding out in New York, so Thanos just destroys New York. That doesn’t just kill off millions of people, a handful of those people happen to be the key characters of The Defenders. On top of that, what are they suppose to do when their street level domain of Hell’s Kitchen is razed by Thano’s wrath?

I’m not saying that is going to happen but that is something that does restrict some of Marvel’s decisions. They have to be accountable for a larger universe, a universe that requires a whole pluthera of characters to be affected by the events of one movie.

There are more issues to the Marvel cinematic universe, however that’s the big one for now.

So how does DC do it right?

DC has the opportunity to have a completely clean state on two fronts. They can have The Flash be a fun and sometimes ridiculous, almost Marvel comic book feel, and that environment doesn’t have to be at odds with the dark and realistic world of Batman v Superman and Man of Steel. As much as I like Grant Gustin as The Flash, I just don’t know if he really fits in with Superman and Batman’s atmosphere.

But at the same time, while these are not the same worlds, making it so the events of Batman v Superman doesn’t affect the events of The Flash, DC has left a door open that these worlds could be connected.

DC has had a history and has shown an interest in the TV shows of a world we live in that has alternative dimensions certain individuals can travel back and forth from. If you watch anything that has to do with alternative dimensions, whether its Fringe, Community or Star Trek, there is always a different feel and atmosphere to these worlds even though they have the same characters and rules most of the time.

The DC cinematic universe could just be a darker more gritty version of the DC universe where the Justice League is coming and Batman and Superman are the main forces against evil.

Whereas the Arrowverse is the CW-ish feeling universe where Batman and Superman aren’t the main forces of good in the universe but instead Arrow and The Flash are.

And the best part is, with this theory, these worlds never even need to collide. We don’t need to have any kind of Crisis where these worlds fight each other. While that sounds great, the different feelings of these worlds just make it an unfair fight. Instead, it’s almost more fun if these worlds really meet outside of subtle hints of the other world being somewhere out there.

The movie The Flash is still down the road a little bit but I would think it would be a great idea to get Ezra Miller for a quick cameo in a later season of The Flash just to acknowledge the other universe. I would even be up for a subtle reference to Grant Gustin’s Flash in the motion picture (depending on the look and feel of the Flash motion picture.

Again, I don’t feel the need for these worlds to ever have a team up or versus movie because they just don’t really math each other in tone or asthetic. But I think the universe the DC is creating could use a new, little more science fiction feel to it that could serve as both a great story point, or Easter Egg, as well as a fan service to those who watch both the shows and the movies.

Now I don’t want it to take away from either the show or the movie, but an alternate universe, and acknowledging it could be a fun world building point for both the movies and the TV shows and be good for the fans.

But what do you think? I know this has been a multiple parter so if you have thoughts on any of the topics of the last three posts, comment and discuss below or in the comment sections of any of the last three posts. What do you think of Arrow Season 2? What do you think of The Flash Season 1? Do you think the world they’re building in both will ever connect? Do you think they should? Who do you think will be a better Flash, Gustin or Miller? Let me know what you think.

You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me requests for future movie reviews and TV reviews. I put all my requests as a priority and will review them as soon as I receive them. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as random tweets I send out, some of them are even live tweets of movies I’m watching live.

I'll leave you with this. I don't think there is a lot going wrong with Marvel but here's a good way to "fix it". Enjoy!