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January 04, 2007

Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno. How could it be bad?

'The Da Vinci Code' was a fun, light read - a throw-away airport novel that became unexplainably successful.

The movie has a great cast and director. Unfortunately, it proved far less than the sum of its parts.

The puzzles throughout (all in English, of course), are largely codes of the scrambled-anagram variety, ones most often solved by ten year olds on long car trips. Howard, somewhat heavy handedly, recycles an element from 'A Beautiful Mind' (which he also directed) and has the letters glow as Langdon (Hanks) rapidly deciphers them.

Hanks and Tautou lack any form of chemistry, whilst the script writer omitted character development. Reno and McKellen supply charisma and accents in equal measure, though it feels as though McKellen is the only one to recognize the innate absurdity of the screenplay, and camps it up accordingly. Happily for him, he has all the best lines.

The most memorable line of the film is also the worst:
Langdon: "You’re the last living descendant of Jesus Christ"

In all, it appears to be an abridged version of a book that was decidedly simple to begin with.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at January 4, 2007 10:20 AM

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