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!