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UnknownSubject
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Australia
212 Posts |
 Posted - 05/24/2006 : 04:06:42 AM
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Saw this last night.
It is a spectacularly ordinary film. The pacing of the film is -
Talking, talking, talking
CHASE SCENE!
Talking, talking, talking
FIGHT!
Talking, talking, talking
etc
Lots of exposition gets dumped on the audience, not all of it sensible. I have to admit I chuckled over the museum curator who, in his dying moments, goes to ridiculous lengths to leave clues about his death.
Paul Bettany is very effective as the creepy yet sympathetic Opus Dei killer, the only person who looks like they are having fun is Sir Ian McKellan and everyone else puts in a solid (if workmanlike) performance.
The big failings with the story was when it tried and failed to be clever - lots of the clues were actually pretty stupid. Which isn't the fault of the movie - I'm sure the book held just as much false cleverness - but it is jarring on the big screen.
On a personal note, I was disappointed that the very interesting topic of "What was Jesus like as a man?" is completely glossed over because the movie is completely focussed on somebody else.
Oh, I didn't read The Da Vinci Code but have read Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, so knew the key twists already.
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2006 : 11:19:27 AM
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I forgot to mention I saw it the last weekend. And although Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman do what they can with the material they have, it's amazing how silly the whole thing seems on screen. Of course, that already was an issue with the book (at least for me), but the adaptations works as a magnifying glass on its cardboard characters, silly twists and "shocking" revelations every X minutes.
Anyway, my two cents:
1) Being such a respectful adaptation, I'm sure everybody who liked the book will enjoy the movie to a certain extent. I was watching the film with a friend of mine who is a fan of Dan Brown and found little to object, save some pace problems towards the end of the movie.
Of course, those who hated the book (and I'm one of them) will find the experinece quite frustrating. To those pour souls, let me tell them that at least Howard and Goldsman are better storytellers than Brown, so they won't be that bored.
2) Ironically enough, after all this silly debate over Brown's supposed criticism on Christianism in general and Catholicism in particular, both book and film are incredibly tame about it. I can't go into much detail without spoiling the plot, but consider that for every widely publicised attack on Christianism, there are at least two scenes that go in the opposite direction. IMHO Brown does not take this topics more seriously than he does the McGuffins that drive his other novels. |
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