Da Vinci for Dummies
Code Cleansed of Controversy

The Holy Grail has been the subject of numerous films, from the silly Monty Python and the Holy Grail to the adventurous Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This summer, director Ron Howard takes a stab at turning a controversial grail quest into a mainstream film and (hopefully) a blockbuster. The novel, The Da Vinci Code, may have everyone buzzing, but the film tries so hard to not offend that it waters down the controversy into pabulum that no one can swallow.

The Da Vinci Code
Tom Hanks (right) stars as Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor, suspected of a murder shrouded in conspiracy in The Da Vinci Code. (Columbia Pictures, 2006)
Directed by: Ron Howard
Written by: Akiva Goldsman (screenplay), based on the novel by Dan Brown
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany, and Alfred Molina

Rated PG-13 (for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content)
Running time: 149 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 7 out of 10.

The Da Vinci Code begins with a murder at France's famous Louvre museum. The crime scene suggests that it is more than just a murder. The body has been marked and displayed in a deliberate manner. A visiting Harvard professor named Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is brought in to help interpret the symbols, but he soon finds himself a suspect in the murder.

Assisting Langdon is a French police officer named Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou). Her connection to the crime is significant, because the dead man is her estranged grandfather. The clues left behind by the dying man not only deliberately name Langdon, but make it clear that he was murdered for guarding a very important secret: the truth of the holy grail.

Enlisting the help of an English grail historian, played magnificently by Ian McKellen, Langdon and Sophie learn that the story of the grail is not what many believe and that her grandfather may have been more than he seemed. The group races from Paris to London in search of clues that may point them to the grail's final resting place.

The story is part mystery, part grail quest, part historic conspiracy theory. Through it all, however, the film fails to take off. While the bones of the novel become the structure of the film, all of the guts are gone. The deeper understanding of symbols and the historic importance of the sacred feminine (both essential to the novel) are glossed over or outright ignored.

Howard, as competent director as any drama could want, has ignored the academic aspect of the novel to center on the thriller. Yet, he fails to capture the spirit of the chase in The Da Vinci Code. There is no sense of urgency, despite the constant pursuit by the French police. Even the one or two prerequisite car chases are sadly boring.

Hanks is great. I would love to have him in just about any film. Nevertheless, I felt that his facial expression did not change from "worried brow" for the duration of the film. He is much too good of an actor to be stuck with such a one-note role. Tautou is competent, but does nothing to stand out in this story. Her character is as singular of mind as every other, and she does not get a chance to show American audiences why she is so celebrated in France.

The film also underutilizes great actors like Jean Reno and Alfred Molina, although they do good jobs with what they have. For great actors to take minor roles is both a blessing and a curse. They give weight to smaller roles, but they also make audiences want more from minor characters.

Thinking back on the film, I am reminded of Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. At the time of its release, no one could imagine how the film could possibly adapt such a controversial novel for the screen. The result was a watered-down story that relied on innuendo and subtext. Stripped of the book's controversial aspects, the film seems almost puritanical by today's standards.

Likewise, The Da Vinci Code has been stripped of its ideas in an effort to tell a mainstream thriller. The revelation about the grail may be controversial to some, but it pales compared to more interesting and subversive ideas in the novel.

It seems odd to me that in an industry where violence and nudity can be shown readily (and more with an NC-17 rating) that ideas must still be censored. Ideas, it seems, are the true weapons of mass destruction.