The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Directed by Ron Howard
A murder in Paris’ Louvre Museum and cryptic clues in some of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery. For 2,000 years a secret society closely guards information that — should it come to light — could rock the very foundations of Christianity.
32 connections found
View:
32 films that influenced The Da Vinci Code
What critics say influenced The Da Vinci Code
I can think of religiously themed films more profoundly oppressive to Catholic sensibilities (e.g., The Last Temptation of Christ), and more searing indictments of corruption and abuse within the Church (e.g., The Magdalene Sisters).
But Mr. Brown has gone much further in what the church fathers would consider sacrilege than did Nikos Kazantzakis with The Last Temptation of Christ, which Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader adapted into a commercially unsuccessful Biblical film in 1988.
This is not "The Last Temptation of Christ," after all.
If you're looking for much smarter religious revisionist movies, try Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) or Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999).
If you have read "The Da Vinci Code," you already know the basic plot of "National Treasure."
Although the filmmakers want it made clear that National Treasure was already in the works before Dan Brown�s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code was released, readers and viewers of both will delight in the similarities: Secret societies revealed, a quest for the truth and treasure, a hateful bad guy, and a good guy and good girl who share some romance along the way.
It hints at the kind of delicious brain candy that made "The Da Vinci Code" a blockbuster best seller.
Only Ian McKellen strikes the right note of joviality as a religious scholar with a twinkle in his eye, lurching around on two canes like Everett Sloane in Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai (1948).
A grail scholar, Teabing--who, with his two canes and feral, mad scientist energy, reminds me a lot of the middle stage of Brundlefly--is searching for the secret of the Holy Grail, which, The Da Vinci Code implies, is just like the Jewel in The Jewel of the Nile.
Advertisement
Instead we get rugged, professorial Tom Hanks as Langdon and cryptologist look-alike Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu, not exactly the Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who lit up another mystery set in the City of Light, the 1963 film Charade.
At the very least, what The Da Vinci Code says about Jesus and the Church makes for fun speculation, and when Ian McKellen comes on and shows the supposed hidden messages in "The Last Supper" the movie comes close to being the cracking good yarn it should've been.
Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno do a good job of not overplaying their roles, and Sir Ian McKellen overplays his in just the right way, making Sir Leigh into a fanatic whose study just happens to contain all the materials for an audio-visual presentation that briefs his visitors on the secrets of Da Vinci's " The Last Supper " and other matters.
Nuns get whacked, the Crusades are uncloaked as the medieval equivalent of the current Middle East sham, and Da Vinci's The Last Supper hints at the human roots of Jesus, yet Howard and scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman, his usual partner-in-idiocy, are so afraid of offending ticket-buyers that any potential provocation ends in a lukewarm puddle.
Witness the stunted 1986 screen version of Umberto Eco's densely bibliophilic "The Name of the Rose," and the atrocious hash that Roman Polanski's 1999 fiasco, "The Ninth Gate," made of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's brilliant "The Club Dumas."
Working from Umberto Eco's 1980 novel, Jean-Jacques Annaud crafts a thoughtful and entertaining murder mystery predicated on intellectual debate (and much more palatable than offspring like The Da Vinci Code).
It is not, let's be clear, in the same lofty league as such great movies made from such phenomenon novels as "Gone With the Wind," "From Here to Eternity," "The Godfather" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- movies that not only capture and enhance their literary source but touch the sky with a special magic all their own.
Advertisement
They hunt a precious device whose whereabouts are hidden in a world-famous item (the "Mona Lisa" instead of the Declaration of Independence).
Though, with blue eyes and shorter hair than in the novel, this Silas looks closer to Roy Batty from "Blade Runner" than any albino.