Just another Grail Quest

I have just watched The Da Vinci Code on DVD.

I enjoyed it. It's not an all time classic, but it's no howler, either. If anything the story works better as a movie (provided you pay attention) than it does as a book; at least a book written in Dan Brown's turgid prose. ellefurtle faded well before halfway and I can't say, hand on heart, that I think she was enjoying it much before she fell asleep, but I found it to be entertaining enough. I quite like Ron Howard as a director (my, my, hasn't Richie Cunningham done well for himself), you rarely get a poor turn out of Tom Hanks, Ian McKellern, Jen Reno and Alfred Molina and Audrey Tautou does well enough even if she is nowhere near as good as her performance in Amélie.

The cinematography was occasionally rich and sometimes a little heavy handed with the symbology, but I guess given the source material it had to be, and the point was laboured more than once. Again, that is a regular fault of modern movie making, which assumes a very low intelligence from audiences, rather than a specific indictment of this movie.

I think the film has a couple more viewings in it - certainly there it is more fun than the book. Six out of ten, I'd say. Solid but not spectacular.

Once again I find myself amused by the thought of the howlings from certain religious interests. Precisely how weak does a believer's faith have to be, to be turned on its head by a story that professes to be nothing but entertainment? If God exists, isn't He big enough and powerful enough to display His displeasure if displeased He is, at "blasphemy" if such it is? The story even goes out of its way to distance the conspirators from the Catholic Church, pointing out that the Vatican would have them all excommunicated if ever they were discovered and as for the much-vaunted bashing of Opus Dei, even that organisation regardless of its affinities, proclivities and agendas in real life, is incidental to the plotters' motives. One of the prime movers is a bishop of Opus Dei as is his lackey. But so is the French policeman who abandons them when he realises that they are the wrong-doers, rather than Robert Langdon, the hero of the movie.

The reactions of these easily upset factions is far more revealing than anything in the movie or book, which after all is merely fiction professing to be nothing else.

Just another Grail Quest

I have just watched The Da Vinci Code on DVD.

I enjoyed it. It's not an all time classic, but it's no howler, either. If anything the story works better as a movie (provided you pay attention) than it does as a book; at least a book written in Dan Brown's turgid prose. ellefurtle faded well before halfway and I can't say, hand on heart, that I think she was enjoying it much before she fell asleep, but I found it to be entertaining enough. I quite like Ron Howard as a director (my, my, hasn't Richie Cunningham done well for himself), you rarely get a poor turn out of Tom Hanks, Ian McKellern, Jen Reno and Alfred Molina and Audrey Tautou does well enough even if she is nowhere near as good as her performance in Amélie.

The cinematography was occasionally rich and sometimes a little heavy handed with the symbology, but I guess given the source material it had to be, and the point was laboured more than once. Again, that is a regular fault of modern movie making, which assumes a very low intelligence from audiences, rather than a specific indictment of this movie.

I think the film has a couple more viewings in it - certainly there it is more fun than the book. Six out of ten, I'd say. Solid but not spectacular.

Once again I find myself amused by the thought of the howlings from certain religious interests. Precisely how weak does a believer's faith have to be, to be turned on its head by a story that professes to be nothing but entertainment? If God exists, isn't He big enough and powerful enough to display His displeasure if displeased He is, at "blasphemy" if such it is? The story even goes out of its way to distance the conspirators from the Catholic Church, pointing out that the Vatican would have them all excommunicated if ever they were discovered and as for the much-vaunted bashing of Opus Dei, even that organisation regardless of its affinities, proclivities and agendas in real life, is incidental to the plotters' motives. One of the prime movers is a bishop of Opus Dei as is his lackey. But so is the French policeman who abandons them when he realises that they are the wrong-doers, rather than Robert Langdon, the hero of the movie.

The reactions of these easily upset factions is far more revealing than anything in the movie or book, which after all is merely fiction professing to be nothing else.