{"id":3165,"date":"2006-05-19T19:38:08","date_gmt":"2006-05-19T23:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2006-05-19T20:30:30","modified_gmt":"2006-05-20T00:30:30","slug":"the-da-vinci-code-movie-better-than-the-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2006\/05\/the-da-vinci-code-movie-better-than-the-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Da Vinci Code<\/em> Movie: Better Than the Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife and I read The Da Vinci Code<\/em> two years ago. Describing the book on T&S<\/a>, I used "clumsy," "tedious," and "implausible" in one sentence. When I saw that the film was getting panned by the critics<\/a>, I was not very excited about seeing it, but Friday is "date day" for my wife and me, and we decided to judge for ourselves. I thought the movie was better than the book. Much better.<\/p>\n

Here are some quick impressions of where most of the critics went wrong:<\/p>\n

\n

McCarthy<\/a>: "The irony in the film’s inadequacy is that the novel was widely found to be so cinematic. Although pretty dismal as prose, the tome fairly rips along<\/em><\/strong>, courtesy of a strong story hook, very short chapters that seem like movie scenes, constant movement by the principal characters in a series of conveyances, periodic eruptions of violent action and a compressed 24-hour time frame."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Did you read the entire book? It rips along for the first few chapters, then melts down. The movie is much tighter and more compelling. I notice that a number of critcs refer to the book as a "page turner<\/a>,"  "labaryntine thriller<\/a>," or similar descriptions. I wonder if there will be an inverse correlation between liking the book and liking the movie?<\/p>\n

\n

Beifuss<\/a>: "De-emphasizing the visually un-cinematic puzzles, anagrams and codes that are key to the plot-heavy book proves to be a mistake … the movie doesn’t give viewers much of a chance to participate in the problem-solving."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is largely true. For example, if you read the book, you might guess the "apple" clue, but you would never get that from the movie alone. Still, it seems a small price to pay for disposing of some of Brown’s hint-dropping.\n<\/p>\n

\n

Groucho<\/a>: "Crammed into a 153-minute frame, the densely detailed The Da Vinci Code<\/em> does begin to inspire heretical chuckles in the way it plays a connect-the-historical-dots game to reveal a sketch of a pregnant Mary Magdalene. Murder in the Louvre, Da Vinci-painted clues, Sir Isaac Newton, the Knights Templar, evil Swiss bankers, and Fibonacci numbers. Forget Holy Blood, Holy Grail<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI think Dan Brown might’ve picked up his designs from a raving street-corner conspiracy theorist (not that there’s anything wrong with that)."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yes, the plot is ridiculous, but you should have known that going in. Roger Ebert<\/a> rightly observes, "Yes, the plot is absurd, but then most movie plots are absurd. That’s what we pay to see."<\/p>\n

\n

Bernard<\/a>: "The movie is so nervous about offending anyone that it’s hardly any fun. Hanks delivers a few solemn speeches meant to deflect criticism. Meanwhile, he and Tautou barely hit it off. At least Mr. and Mrs. Smith got hot while doing their jobs."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As far as I can tell, Jami Bernard is not in high school, so I am not sure how to explain her disappointment at the absence of romance between Hank and Tautou. Why lament the fact that the film doesn’t turn to a cliche?<\/p>\n

And as for the notion that the film plays down the religious controversy (a theme in several reviews), I am not sure what people were expecting. The film suggests that Jesus is not divine and blames the Catholic Church for most of the world’s ills, including the murder of "free-thinking women" throughout the ages.<\/p>\n

The critic who gets it right is Roger Ebert<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

"While the book is a potboiler written with little grace and style, it does supply an intriguing plot. Luckily, Ron Howard is a better filmmaker than Dan Brown is a novelist; he follows Brown’s formula (exotic location, startling revelation, desperate chase scene, repeat as needed) and elevates it into a superior entertainment, with Tom Hanks as a theo-intellectual Indiana Jones."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The rest of his review is spot on, too.<\/p>\n

By the way, Ian McKellen is great in this movie.<\/p>\n

P.S. I view this movie as an elaborate murder mystery and don’t take the pseudo-history or pseudo-theology seriously. But in my post on the book<\/a>, I wrote:<\/p>\n

Throughout the book, Brown sprinkles bits and pieces of supposed historical facts, and I find myself wondering how much of what I am reading is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true.\u00e2\u20ac? Does it matter? Is this all harmless drivel? Or do false ideas have a corrupting effect on our souls? Somewhere in my education, I was taught to cast a wide net in search of truth, but the admonition to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153become acquainted with all good books\u00e2\u20ac? must imply a charge to avoid \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac? books. That is, if truth elevates, surely lies degrade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That post didn’t generate much of a discussion, so feel free to weigh in on that now, if the questions interest you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife and I read The Da Vinci Code two years ago. Describing the book on T&S, I used "clumsy," "tedious," and "implausible" in one sentence. When I saw that the film was getting panned by the critics, I was not very excited about seeing it, but Friday is "date day" for my wife and me, and we decided to judge for ourselves. I thought the movie was better than the book. Much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}