Da Vinci Code – Watch It!!

Yes. Two words I give it. Not ‘Thumbs Up’ or ‘Great Work’. Just ‘Watch it’. So I did last night.

First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am neither against the common belief that Jesus was divine & immortal, nor for the fact that the story depicted in the Da Vinci Code is partially true. I’m not a religious person.

God fearing, yes.

If someone made a movie on the Ramayan with a new twist to it, I’ll probably go watch that as well. What I do believe in is evolution… and that man came from apes, who came form birds who came form reptiles who came from amphibians who came from fish who came from multi cell organisms, who came from uni cellular organisms who came from the big drum of evolution.

So the scene is this. The Greatest Story ever told is being given a little jolt, one which ‘may shake the very foundations of mankind’. ‘Greatest story’ is again debatable. To my mind, no story can beat ‘The Mahabharat’. That’s a different debate though.

I have this habit of reading a few reviews before I watch a movie. I stick to Newsweek, Rolling Stone and CNN (Entertainment weekly). All three panned this movie. Wait, they killed this movie, and any hope it had in… hell.


A few lines from these reviews:

From Rolling Stone (1 star):

...There's no code to decipher. Da Vinci is a dud -- a dreary, droning, dull-witted adaptation of Dan Brown's religioso detective story that sold 50 million copies worldwide...
...Bettany's rabid overacting seems to inspire Hanks to take the opposite tack. Hanks remains disturbingly unruffled, even when he is framed for the monk's crimes...
...Also missing in action is the romantic spark between Robert and Sophie that Brown provided in the novel. All that Hanks gives Tautou is a fatherly hug and a kiss on the forehead...

From EW (C+):

...Hanks, playing this prof on a crusade, has to sandwich Langdon's brainy passion into the crevices between mediocre action scenes. He looks glum and, frankly, a little lost...
...The surprise, and disappointment, of "The Da Vinci Code" is how slipshod and hokey the religious detective story now seems. It's a challenge, to be sure, to cram Brown's litany of signs and symbols, his intricate meditations, into a two-and-a-half-hour film, but Howard, working from Akiva Goldsman's script, fails to build intellectual excitement into the quest.
As a novel, "The Da Vinci Code" has a resonance that lingers. It may be less history than hokum, but it's a searching product of the feminist era, when even many true believers have grown weary of the church as an instrument of moral reprimand and male dominion. The film is faithful enough, but it's hard to imagine it making many converts.

I’m not getting into the Newsweek bit for this one!!

OK… any guess on the motives that went behind these criticisms? I’d say pressure from the top, or even pressure within. Its unfair when a work that involves art (film-making, not the Danesh Kumar variety, is an art) is not given its due.
To call Tom Hanks expressionless, glum and lost is stretching it a bit too far. Two guys in Hollywood who make even crap scripts look good are Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks (Man on Fire, Castaway... for example). I’m not a great fan of Tom Hanks, although I can watch Forrest Gump everyday of my life. He may not have the range of a Robet deNiro... I still think that we are all lucky that people like him make movies. Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, The Green Mile...

Next, I did not think that the movie was dreary , drong and dull witted... infact I was into it from the word go. I read on CNN.com that invitees at Cannes actually sneered and laughed during certain scenes in the movie. Come on, if you can’t take someone’s opinion on a parallel look at your religion, leave the hall. If a movie shakes your faith, your faith isn't strong enough brother. I am one of those 50 million assholes who bought the book. I am also one of the many who could not finish it as well. I liked the plot… but I hated the narrative. I simply think Dan Brown underestimates the intelligence of his readers. Page 348 is where I stopped. The movie edited out the unwanted narrative, and scores its first big point there.

Paul Bettany was true to the character. While reading the book, I had a picture of this guy in my mind. And Bettany cracked that. I pictured Harrison Ford as Langdon though!!
The romantic spark that critics missed was unnecessary. There was no time for romance between Robert and Sophie. Its hard to fall for the flesh when you are being shot at, bleeding, running from a crazed cop and a monk on the rampage.
As for the fatherly hug and kiss sequence – face it man. Assuming you, my dear visitor and reader, are a man. Also assuming you met this cute girl and just realized that she is the only direct descendant of JC, would you feel like tasting her lip stick? Making love to her in the church courtyard? This is where I think the reviewers let their bias/pressures take over them completely.

As for the script failing to build intellectual excitement, how many of you watched Fahrenheit 911? Its an intellectual stimulus of Presidential proportions. Yet Michael Moore was snubbed at every decent award ceremony. And people re-elected Dubya for a second term. Did the purpose of intellectual excitement work there?

You all know the plot… if you missed that in the last few days, you are seriously in trance. My advice: Watch the movie. Its worth every dollar you pay for. But hey, my audience is primarily the pirate community, so its worth every second of your free time.