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Brief Da Vinci code review

I got a free ticket to go see the movie Da Vinci Code and while it won’t say it was worth what I paid for it… well, it wasn’t worth a lot more than that, either.

The movie in a word:  Joyless.

I can count the number of times the characters smiled on one hand.
I can count the number of times I smiled on probably one or two fingers.

I haven’t read the book, but judging from my reactions to this movie and the 7th-grade-level writing abilities I slogged through in one of Dan Brown’s other books, I can’t say I’ll be clamoring to read the Da Vinci Code anytime soon.

Things I *did* like about the movie:

– Some of the beautiful scenery and cinematography.
– Ian McKellen.  Not all the movies he’s in are good, but HE is always a pleasure to watch, IMHO.
– Learning some interesting historical facts.

Things I definitely *did not* like about the movie:
– The ending.  What a fizzle!
– The graphic depictions of the monk’s self-flaggelation.  Seeing the scars and (on the side) the whip would have conveyed the point just fine.
– The overbearing seriousness of the entire film.  No, it didn’t need an Eddie Murphy sidekick donkey, but… hmm… on the other hand, that might have improved things.
– The movie length.  Rarely does including every detail from the book make sense.

Have you seen the movie yet?  What did you think?

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Adam Lasnik

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6 responses to “Brief Da Vinci code review”

  1. Graham Avatar
    Graham

    Don’t write off the book because of the movie, especially if you only read his other books, which weren’t as good. Of course, having already seen the movie, a lot of the excitement might be gone from the book.

    Also, smile-rate seems like an odd thing to judge a movie by. If you were Robert Langdon, or someone else involved in all that, you probably wouldn’t have smiled very frequently throughout that ordeal, either. That’s just not what it’s about.

    As for my opinion of the movie, I think it was okay, but mostly because I always enjoy seeing a book I like come alive with real people, outside of my head. It made me want to reread the book, though I don’t know that I’d care much about seeing the movie again.

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  2. Graham Avatar
    Graham

    P.S. Thanks for fixing commenting in Safari. 😀

    Reply
  3. Philipp Lenssen Avatar
    Philipp Lenssen

    I actually liked it and enjoyed it…

    Reply
  4. Michael Hosting Avatar
    Michael Hosting

    By the way, Spanish journalists found the new interpretation for the Holy Grail 🙂 The Holy Grail = the World Cup.
    Look at http://medvegonok.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  5. Adam Avatar
    Adam

    Graham… I have both weird tastes and expectations in my theatre-going experiences.  I look forward to smiling even in otherwise dark and serious films; that doesn’t necessarily mean a “ha ha!” chortle, but even a “Damn, that’s fiendishly clever or witty!”

    Philipp and Michael… thanks for chiming in, and also (Michael) for sharing the World Cup interp.  I know it’s a bit late, but I should forward that to some of my football-crazy friends 😀

    Reply
  6. erik lopez Avatar
    erik lopez

    The first time I saw the movie, my reaction was “too boring” and there were lots of things which i believe needs to be given much emphasis because the novel i had read was beautifully made (surely not a handiwork of a man lacking with mental faculty) so I was expecting that the movie was way better than the novel.

    You couldn’t help but say “next chapter” implying only just how the movie was getting and getting dull as it ended.

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