Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks with a really bad hair cut) is a
famous symbologist (whatever the hell that is) who’s touring the lecture circuit
in Paris, France. Our introduction to Langdon comes during one of his lectures,
where he talks about how the basic symbols of the ancients have been changed in
the modern day--for example, Poseidon’s trident has now become synonymous with
the Devil as his pitchfork. After the lecture, while he’s busy signing copies of
his book for his adoring fans, Langdon is approached by a police officer, who
has come to ask for his help with a very strange case.
The curator of the Louvre, the famous French art museum which houses works by
such masters as Leonardo Da Vinci, among others, has been found dead--shot to
death. But that’s not the strange thing. The man’s naked body has been arranged
in a spread-eagle fashion on the floor, with symbols written in blood on his
chest. And that’s still not the really weird thing. It appears that the old
gentleman spent the last moments of his life arranging himself like this to send
a special message to somebody--to whom, and what was the message, is what
Captain Bezu Fache (the always sturdy Jean Reno) wants to know from Langdon.
Yet the investigation is disrupted by the arrival of Agent Sophie Neveu (the
fetching Audrey Tautou) who, in the guise of presenting new information to Fache,
manages to covertly send a message to Langdon via cell phone which warns him
that the police are looking at him as the prime suspect in the murder. And so
begins the grand chase throughout Paris and France, and onward to England--all
over a DEEP DARK SECRET that people from a shadowy organization are willing to kill to prevent
from coming out. The DEEP DARK SECRET of both the book and movie turns out to be
a well-known theory that had been debated by scholars and historians for years.
It’s even been the subject of several independently-produced documentaries that
aired on PBS and the History Channel. So when this secret was finally revealed
in the story, it really wasn’t as shocking a revelation to me as it was supposed
to be.
Dan Brown’s book was essentially a lurid, lame
potboiler. And in faithfully following every twist and turn of the novel,
director Ron Howard has basically made a lame, predictable potboiler of a movie.
In order for a chase story to work, you must care about the characters, and
despite the high-wattage acting talent on screen here, I really did not care
about anybody in this movie. The Da Vinci Code was nothing more than a
slickly-produced travelogue that’s devoid of a sense of humor or of any fun at
all. If you’re looking for a far more enjoyable film in the same vein, check out
Nick Cage’s National Treasure. Like The Da Vinci Code, it also deals with
treasure hunters using puzzles to find an ancient treasure. But National
Treasure doesn’t take itself too seriously--unlike the overly solemn Da Vinci
Code--and is all the more entertaining for it.
--SF
Main Review Page | Suspense/Thriller Page |Email Me |Buy This DVD Right Here!
