The Da Vinci Code

A symbologist is called into France’s Louvre museum when a man there is discovered dead with symbols cut all over himself. A cute cop (no, not Jean Reno, although he’s pretty cute himself) joins him on his trek to find the meaning behind it all, and to figure out why Tom Hanks’ hair looks so weird here. Oh yeah, religion is involved in the film’s mystery and so is history and a whole bunch of other stuff…that don’t interest me. Da Vinci coding ensues.

As seen at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival

First off, let’s get this out of the way: I’m the one person in the world who apparently has never read the book on which this film is based, so if you’ve come here expecting comparisons and so forth (which I don’t do anyway), it ain’t gonna happen! So what did I think of the movie that’s based on this oh-so popular-selling book? To be honest…“meh!” mostly. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not a religious man or if the film’s “talkiness” just didn’t keep me interested in its mystery-based plotline, but at the end of the day, I just didn’t care for much about the film, particularly its many puzzles and rhymes to be uncovered, which after a while, just felt tired and repetitive to me. It’s one thing for a mystery to grip and surprise, but the entries here seemed to want to have the effect of enthralling, but for me, simply didn’t engage or blow my mind. In fact, it’s one of those films that I could easily have walked out of, halfway through, and not lost a minute’s sleep over not knowing what would have happened next. I simply didn’t give a shit and whether that’s the filmmakers’ fault for making the film “too talky”, the writer for making the story too historical and religious (two themes that aren’t “interests” in my own life) or my own highly set expectations railing over this overblown so-so suspense flick, who knows, but whatever the case, the film simply didn’t work for me on an overall level, so I wouldn’t recommend that you slap your money into it either, unless of course…you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people to have read and loved the book, and you could care less about what an un-religious clown as myself has to tell you about it.

Some of the stuff that I did enjoy in the film included its actors, all of whom were impressive, particularly Paul Bettany as the messed up dude with the albino eyes, Ian McKellen as the man who provides some of the answers to the mystery and Amelie, who’s a doll and “easy on the eyes” to boot. Tom Hanks was “ayight”, but nothing more than that. His character is actually kinda boring and considering that he’s the centerpiece of this bloated affair, I guess that may be part of why I felt the film to be, well…“bloated”. Doc Ock’s character wasn’t all that interesting either and could have been cut down dramatically. Oh yeah, it lasts too long too. Almost two hours and forty-five minutes and as per RETURN OF THE KING, about 3-4 endings that just kept lapping off each other. End it already, man!! I also enjoyed the directing, which for Ron Howard, was impressive, as well as all of the cool locations and of course, some of the mystery stuff, but they lost me after the Vatican and some sect from ancient times got involved and everybody was interested in Jesus and his honey back in the day. Granted, I can see how this might interest others, but again, to me…most of it didn’t register highly on the entertainment or deep curiosity scales. And to end this review, I’ll say that I’d actually been at the top of the list of “Hanks new hair knockers” over the past few months, but you know what…it actually worked in the movie! Good shit. That said, the movie’s over and it’s looking weird nowadays, dude…it’s time to chop that shit off and get back to old-school Hanks…bush-man!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian