The Da Vinci Code
Man, did this movie get clobbered with bad buzz or what? I seriously don't remember the last time I was told a major movie sucked this hard in a long time. It was all of a sudden we all got blindsided with 'THIS MOVIE SUCKS!!!!! DON'T EVEN BOTHER!!!!' To the point where it seems like there's some sort of organized suspicious effort to take this movie out at the knees. (But I'm done with conspiracies for now.) Anyway, I did prepare myself for a punishingly long snoozefest movie so I really seriously stocked on goodies this time. It was an 11:45AM showing and I picked up bagel with cream cheese, large arizona iced tea, hersheys with almonds and a plastic thing of watermelon chunks. All good calls.
I read the Da Vinci Code book and I liked it. I didn't see why people were rabid over it but it was a fun read. I thought the real strength to the book wasn't the thriller run around junk. That was whatevery and toward the end downright skimmable. But I was totally fascinated by the concepts behind it all. All that historical hearsay stuff. I kind of dug it. Alot of chicks loved this book because whether they agreed with it or not... it was super powered feminine. I think the male/female balance in all religions have somehow got all crazy out of wack along the way and it was coolio to see the path of an 'alternative universe' of sorts. It all seemed so realistic and logical and stuff. I thought it was just cool to think of the possibilities.
Whatever. Finally Da Vinci starts up. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst. Considering this is a Ron Howard movie didn't make it easier for me because I'm not a big fan of his watery approach to most things. (To be honest I still think Nightshift is his best flick to date). But 20 minutes into this movie I was surprised I wasn't hating it. At times dialogue was like bad dinner theater. The acting was stupid. Nothing was impressive... but I wasn't bored. And when it was real bad it often crossed over beyond regular bad into self-spoof bad which was entertaining somewhat. I think this flick may actually be getting a bad rap.
Yeah, it's flat as a pancake and boring at the core. Splat. The whole thing is one big yawn. But I think what really took the air out was Audrey Tattoo. She's really awful in this. I loved Amelie so I was sort of stunned to see her be so... bad. It was like she was using a fake french accent the whole time. I don't think she was convincing once. Not even when she was just standing there. Even when she was offscreen entirely she was bad. Also Tom Tanks acted like he bombed out on ludes. I think he should start taking side roles. And the action (for whatever was there) was more boring than the dialogue. I bet the audiobook was more exciting than this whole movie.
But for the most part I found this flick kind of entertaining at a very low level. Granted, not once was I excited or scared or shocked or wowed. Not for a second. But it stayed consistently interestingly dull and never quite collapsed into all out intolerable terribleness. (Well, probably the last 15 minutes made me want to throw up totally but at that point I was appreciative that I wasn't already covered in dried vomit from an hour prior). So should you see it? Eh. Bottom line. If you read the book and liked it alot or loved it. Might as well. But if you ain't read the book..... bring a book.
Three Good Things About this Movie
- I think Bill Bellamy did a good job as the albino creep.
- Some of the shots looked sort of coolio.
- The religious history stuff still sort of played well.
Three Bad Things About this Movie
- Both Hanks and Tattoo were so boring and bad they might as well have been
Brit Hume and Madonna.
- What exactly happened to let them escape from the van? C'mon! With the bullet
thing? That's all you got? Really? That was it?!?! That was awful!!!!
- Tension and drama relied 100% on the music... and the music was bad.
All in all, this movie is dud. But it's a not bad for a rainy-day-when-you're-bored-and-want-to-be-differently-bored type of dud. As for the religious protests of this flick. Smells like fake hype. I wouldn't be surprised if they're paying dudes to stand out in front of theaters with signs. I guess they thought religious frenzy worked for the Passion, right? For that flick Mel got naked and wacked a bees nest with a big cross and everything went nuts. This time around Opie and Grazer slapped at the nest with a prada belt and are now standing there like dorked out bee keeper douchebags wondering why the buzz isn't bigger...