Private Opinion

After Watching The Da Vinci Code

Did I like The Da Vinci Code? No.
Why? Because it is a very poor adaptation of a very poor book.

I didn’t like the book, so one could argue that I was biased against the movie from the word go. But still, when we have Tom Hanks and Ron Howard as actor and the director, the duo that gave us Apollo 13 together and Forrest Gump and A Beautiful Mind separately, one would expect at least an average fare. It wasn’t there.

There is always a problem with the adaptation of hugely successful books (and I am told that The Da Vinci Code has sold more copies than any other book) in defining the intended target audience. To make a movie that mainly caters to the people that have read the book or make a movie that everyone else would also understand? This movie falls somewhere in between. Avid lovers of the book would notice many important details missing and first-hand movie viewers would feel confused by many half-cooked plots. How would anyone understand the undying loyalty of Silas to Bishop Aringarosa without reading the book?

There were just two gasps by the audience in the entire movie. Both involved Silas. One was when he hits the nun, other one was when he jumps on Tom Hanks in Teabing’s house. The most important scene of the movie was the disclosure of the identity of the ‘teacher’ and it was pictured in a manner that audience didn’t react to it.

Some scenes were hilarious. Imagine this,

Sophie (inflight to London, goes over to Silas) : Diid yoo kill my grand-faather?
Silas : I am the messenger of God (or something to that effect).
Sophie (chataakh, chataakh on the cheeks of Silas) : Diid yoo kill my grand-faather?
Silas : Blah, blah, blah.
Sophie (again chataakh, chataakh on the cheeks of Silas) : Blah, blah, blah and so on.

I could almost hear Dharmendra screaming, “kutte ! kamiine ! maiN teraa Khuun pii jaauuNgaa. dishum, dishum”.

The movie is too wordy, the characters have not been developed well, there is zero chemistry between Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou (who by the way, plays her part well), the plot is half-cooked, there is no climax and in the end you just feel let-down.

Thanks to the religious groups for giving undue publicity to the movie because of which the theater was jam-packed. A movie that would have flopped anyway, might go on to recover its cost or may be garner some profit because of dont-watch-the-movie-its-blasphemous. They could have allowed people like me to come out of the theater and say dont-watch-the-movie-its-boring.

Update: There is an interesting article in WaPo on the history of church (read Catholic) protests against Hollywood in USA.