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ARTS& ENTERTAINMENT

‘Smith & Reeve at the Movies: The DaVinei Code

Iain W. Reeve and Stephanie Smith

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou star in the Ron Howard directed film adaptation of the best-selling, simply written, feverous page-turner. The plot follows Robert Langdon (Hanks), a religious symbolist who is drawn into a shadowy world of contrived intrigue and unrealistic conspiracy. He must team up with a sexy cryptologist (Tautou) in order to solve the mystery they have become entangled in, one that questions the very founda- tions of the Catholic Church.

Reeve:

Being a huge critic of the success of the book, I expected this to be a pretty horrible film. And, while the film did rise slightly above expectations, thanks to a couple memo- rable performances and some skilful imagery, it still remains a sub-par, transparent money gtab, trying to cash in on the success of an overly popular book.

I have always been wary of films that try to compensate for a weak script with a star- studded cast of proven Hollywood regulars. Tom Hanks, who everyone likes in at least one or two films, is tapped as the overtly bland lead character. Consider that the best the film can find to do with its main character is engage him in faux academic sparing with Ian McKellen, and labour him with constant panic attacks attributed to a childhood acci- dent. Audrey Tautou of Ame/ie fame is thrown an equally large lemon. There is only so much that even the best can do with such lame characters.

Solid turns are put in by Sir Ian, who is always entertaining, and Paul Bettany as the albino stalker of just about everyone in the film. These two, along with the brief appear- ances by Alfred Molina, manage to carry certain part of the film along. The most engag- ing scene is indeed the one where McKellen’s character lays out for the confounded audi- ence the nature of the conspiracy theory the film revolves around. Ridiculous as it all is—just ask any knowledgeable catholic—it could have made for engaging fiction. The problem is some people’s inability to recall that it is indeed fiction.

The film carries a solid premise, based on an engaging conspiracy theory which,

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admittedly, will send many history or mythology buffs running for the encyclopedia when they get home to check the film’s claims. The problem is the solid concept is wast- ed in a film that has lame characters, lame drama, lame tension, and a super-lame ending.

The first hour of the film feels like a video game, where the characters proceed through contrived situations from one puzzling challenge to the next. If I wanted plot lines for simpletons, I’d rent The DaVinci Code for PS2. A lack of realism and trying to push the stakes too high ruined the book for me, and the film was equally cursed before Ronnie even yelled action. Ultimately, they did the best with what they had, which wasn’t much.

Smith:

I read the book. I worked in a bookstore when it was released, and I grew rather tired of people asking me if The Da Vinci Code was any good, or what it was about and then getting blank stares when I claimed to have not read it. So I did. Now, don’t get me wrong here, it’s not a bad book; it’s just not that good either. And it certainly was not written in a way that translates to the big screen. The book is based largely on dialogue, and a movie like that does not fly with large audiences.

So I went in not expecting great things, and I was right to have no expectations. The movie was choppy at best. It skipped from tense scenes where the. two main characters were involved in a crucial plot development, to random flashbacks that had very little rel- evance to the plot. It did not even pick up enough to hold my interest until an hour and a half in, and even that was short-lived. The dialogue that was so heavily relied upon in the book was poorly written and poorly delivered in the film.

What surprised me most was how poor the acting was. The cast reads like an Oscar nominee list, and one would expect that the acting would reflect that. This was not the case.

Tom Hanks was emotionless and delivered his lines as if he was perpetually bored, and Audrey Tautou—adorable as she is—seemed incredibly flat. She barely showed enough emotion to pass as human, and nowhere near enough to make her character believable. The only actor who caught my attention was Sir Ian McKellen.

Earlier, I mentioned that the film did not catch my attention until half way in and McKellen was the main reason for this. He was funny, knowledgeable, and captivating. Aside from McKellen, Paul Bettany did a fairly decent job with what little time he was given, but Sir Ian outshone them all.

One of the best-selling fiction books in recent history, The Da Vinci Code tells an intriguing tale of religious secrecy, conspiracy, and murder in the name of the church. But it does not transfer to the screen. Flat and choppy, The Da Vinci Code fails to hold your interest. Mediocre, at best. Save your money and go see the fabulous Ian McKellen in X-Men III: The Final Stand, which promises to be a much more engaging film.

**This review has been a paid product of McKellen Enterprises and is brought to you by the Sir Ian McKellen is Awesome Foundation**

I found it on teh interweb!

GBV lives on at largeheartedboy.com.

Disc Competitor

This Week’s. Website: Large Hearted Boy .

December 31, 2004 was a sad, sad day for fans of Guided By Voices. After two decades of making lo-fi, brilliant indie rock ——_ place. music, frontman and leader Rob Pollard dismantled the band. But’

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