reviewed by Brooke Edge The most-anticipated, most-debated movie of the summer is here – and brings with it a new illustration for the phrase “doesn’t live up to the hype.” It doesn’t take a Harvard symbologist to know that when the most popular book in who knows how long is put on screen, it had better be in the form of a damn good movie to not disappoint legions of fans. You don’t want them to come away yawning, and certainly not saying, “I rather liked reading the book better.”
Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” was put in the hands of director Ron Howard and writer Akiva Goldsman, and his main character Robert Langdon turned over to Tom Hanks. Howard is an able, trusted director (“Apollo 13,” “A Beautiful Mind”). Goldsman is an able, trusted writer (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Cinderella Man”). Hanks is a more-than-able, perhaps most-trusted actor in America. But to make a blockbuster book into a great movie though, you need more than ability and trust. You need people behind and before the scenes who surprise, dazzle and remind audiences why they loved the work in the first place.
For the three people left in the western world who don’t know the plot, “The DaVinci Code” begins one night in the Louvre. An elderly man – Sauniere, the museum’s curator, we’ll find out – is being chased by a gun-toting albino monk.
 Professor Robert Langdon, a professor visiting from Harvard to present a lecture on symbol analyzation, is interrupted from his book signing by police and summoned to the scene of the crime to assist in reviewing the markings left around Sauniere’s body. Langdon is quickly pulled aside and informed of his suspect status by the curator’s granddaughter Sophie (Audrey Tautou), also a master code-breaker. The two begin interpreting the clues left by her grandfather to discover his murderer, and find themselves embroiled in a millennia-long underground religious battle, one that reaches down to question the very roots of the Christian church.
Beyond my thoughts on the announcements of scandal and heresy by church groups – and the many movie tickets that those protests will sell – my concern here is simply the quality of the film. “The DaVinci Code” isn’t a poor movie, but it’s far from the best work by any of the three aforementioned collaborators.
The script spends far too much time on set-up and explanation of the plot, which admittedly is difficult to squeeze within the time allotted by major-movie standards. Howard disappoints by ripping off his own work from “A Beautiful Mind,” and including a multitude of irritating, over-exposed flashbacks. Hanks looks relatively disinterested throughout the adventure, and his periodic “Aw, isn’t Tom Hanks cute the way he rolls his eyes like that?” moments take you out of what you’re told is the most imperative, earth-shattering discovery ever conceived. Reminiscing about “Sleepless in Seattle” is distracting.
For those who’ve read the book, the film is so true to Brown’s novel that there’s nothing to keep its devotees watching. Like most thrillers, once you know the ending the appeal is gone. Howard and Goldsman don’t bring anything to reinvigorate that spark.
For those who’ve waited to see the movie, I suspect the hours spent on getting you up to speed explaining who everyone is and which side of the war they’re on become not only confusing but dull. The movie becomes the Cliff Notes version of the book, just a sketch of the original excitement without the benefit of details that can’t fit in the running time, which still manages to be at least 30 minutes too long.
Throughout film history there have been good, bad and ugly translations of popular literature. The great ones are held up on pedestals – “Gone with the Wind,” “In Cold Blood,” even “Jurassic Park.” While reading “The DaVinci Code,” it’s impossible to not imagine and look forward to its movie version. Unfortunately, despite all its possibility (car chases; religious intrigue; gun-toting, self-flagellating albino monks!) “The DaVinci Code” will have to settle for its sub-par place, deep within the bargain bin of the adaptation canon.
This film is rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content.
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