The Da Vinci Code was one of the most anticipated films of the past several
years, so the big screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s controversial bestseller was
bound to disappoint a large number of folks, if only due to the law of
averages. In the end, though, lukewarm critical reaction couldn’t dint Sony’s
savvy day-and-date release scheme, which let much of the world see the film at
the same time — a rarity for anything except an action blockbuster.
Cash registers rang loud and clear, with a
final theatrical tally of over $750 million, “only” $218 million of which came
from the United States.
Still, popularity doesn’t equal quality, and as adapted by
Akiva Goldsman and directed by Ron Howard,
The
Da Vinci Code is executed with such grim turgidity as to drain the ostensible
popcorn thrill out of Brown’s novel. In its steadfast devotion to the
source material, the film version of
The Da Vinci Code eschews the sort
of spry adventure pacing that would help circumvent, or at least gloss over,
many narrative potholes, proving with a loud thud that that which delights the
mind does not necessarily delight the eyes.
For those unfamiliar with the narrative, Tom Hanks stars as
Harvard professor of religious symbology Robert Langdon, who is in Paris
to give a guest lecture. Just as he’s finished, he’s summoned to the Louvre to
aid in the identification of mysterious markings found on the body of curator
Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle), who we’ve seen murdered by Silas (Paul
Bettany), an albino monk who inflicts
ritualistic pain upon himself to be closer to God. Captain Bezu Fache (Jean
Reno) — like Silas, a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic sect Opus Dei —
suspects Langdon of the murder, and is hell-bent (if you’ll pardon the
expression) on extracting a confession out of him.
French cop/cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Amélie’s Audrey Tautou)
comes to Langdon’s assistance, and together they wriggle free of Fache’s
custody; she also eventually reveals herself to be Sauniere’s estranged
granddaughter. At issue for the duo are a
series of coded messages that Sauniere has left. These messages lead to a
key, and the key in turn to even more clues that all point to a secret about
the mythical Holy Grail and Jesus Christ of Nazareth — a secret that a shadowy
Opus Dei council, led by Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), will stop at
nothing to destroy. Wanted by Interpol, Langdon and Neveu manage to stay one
step ahead of Fache and solicit the assistance of Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellan),
an old colleague of Langdon’s.
The labyrinthine conspiratorial mysteries that unfold in
jet-setting fashion all over Europe and neatly unravel
in the movie over the course of 36 hours or so are, of course, wildly
improbably condensed, but to get hung up on that is to miss the point. National Treasure and any number of
other historical thrillers are based on equally implausible or fancifully
ridiculous turns, but nowhere near this dramatically inert; lightness afoot is the key to their success.
Howard and Goldsman, however, seem to fundamentally misread the appeal of Brown’s book — its sugary
surface touch with intricate conspiracies, its savvy commingling (and
co-opting?) of history and religion with more traditional elements of the
thriller genre. It’s the literary equivalent, I assume, of sugar-free
dessert; one reads it and feels like they’re somehow smarter or healthier than
before they started. The big twist of the movie centers around “the greatest
hoax perpetrated on mankind,” yes, but the filmmakers and every member of the
cast save McKellan seems to be ground into the shoals of dullness by the weight
of that quote-unquote obligation. Howard attempts to ratchet up the profundity
of it all by shooting dark, dour frames and working in some transposed
backdrops to help “connect” present and past, but what this chiefly means is long, chunky passages of didactic
exposition. What does pass for character development — say, Neveu taking
Langdon to a park and buying drug paraphernalia off a lingering junkie so that
they then “have a moment to think” — is frequently downright laughable.
Hanks soldiers through this muddled affair as best he can,
but evidences no discernible chemistry with Tautou, who is a charming actress
out of her depths here. Only McKellan breathes some quirky, sardonic life into
his role as Teabing. Everyone else seems
to be solemnly intoning from one of the various narrated guidebooks for the
cottage industry of Da Vinci Code
travelogue tours. The end result is a self-serious bore, with just a few
precious intermittent moments of excitement.
The Da Vinci Code
is available in separate full screen or 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen editions, each
of which contain the same bonus material spread out over two discs. Audio
choices offer forth English, French and Spanish language 5.1 Dolby digital
surround sound tracks, as well as an English 2.0 stereo track. In somewhat keeping
with the bloated nature of the feature, it’s quantity over quality with regards
to The Da Vinci Code’s bonus slate. Most
of the 10 included featurettes clock
in at four to eight minutes, and give vague and/or superficial insights into the
making of the movie or a single aspect (Hans Zimmer’s score, for instance) of
its construction.
An exception to the rule is a two-part Filmmaker’s Journey mini-doc, which comes in at around 40 minutes pieced
together and touches on the practical hurdles and complications of production as
well as Bettany’s make-up, etc. Also of
some atypical interest is a five-and-a-half-minute featurette on the hidden codes
and visual signifiers with which Howard seeds his film. A downloadable puzzle
game is also available via DVD-ROM, though I’ll be sticking to sudoku, thank
you very much. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)
