This will not be the IMDb or Times Of India kind of review, so without going into the formal details about the cast and crew, year of release and the like - okay! i can give you one formal info: I watched it today in the afternoon - we'll start right away. Firstly if you, ever since you learned that the female lead playing for Sophie Neveau would be Audrey Tautau, - never seen or heard of her before - have wondered that how possibly the producers could have thought of anybody, but for the gorgeous Sophie Marceau, - the Bond girl in Die Another Day - as perfect for the role was beyond comprehension, then all i can tell you is that you are not alone. Apart from having to change only half her name for the role, she would have beautifully fitted into the character painted by Dan Brown. Anyways Miss Tautau - or Mrs. but being the optimist that I am, I'd rather assume her to be single - doesn't do a bad job either. However that exactly is the thing - i wanted to use the word problem here - with this movie. It is a 'not a bad' movie.
Let's face it, turning a bestseller into a movie has always been a tough ask, leave alone a book which is probably the most read by the current population on planets earth and mars. So before moving any further, if you are reading this to decide whether you should go for the movie or no, i would say that it is a must see if you have not read the novel. Nonetheless if you have, then i'd tell you not to hurry. For, even the crictics at Cannes would have been more merciful had the movie premiered in 2012 or so. People need time to forget about the book; it gets big upon the film and clearly so. While a book and it's reader have all the pages and time respectively, to relish the description of the Louvre, a movie has just about all of a five second shot; and you have to take it all in one eyeful as against a novel where the mind is fed in a linear fashion and has to its aid a storyteller who takes pleasure in pointing out the fine nuances of the structure.
Coming to the performances, it's again the same story; could have been much improved. Mr. Tom Hanks, well we all have seen you do much better than this. Having said that, if on seeing the movie you feel that Tom Hanks with his Harvard professor hairstyle - Hollywood always gives its professors long hair - does not quite resemble the Robert Langdon you had imagined while reading the novel, I guarantee that after watching it you shall never remember that face again. For Audrey Tautau, once again, a job well done but no more than that. Silas's role is a well etched one - I really do not know the names of the other people in the cast - His is one strong performance, be it the fight sequences where he once swoops down upon Langdon or his corporal mortification scenes. He and Tom Hanks can be safely said to be the best thing about The Da VInci Code. The other actors have not really done anything special. The character of Lee Teabing which was so central to the plot needed some careful development. Even the guy playing cop, though good, was no where near his French Kiss days.
On second thoughts, it is not so much the actors' fault. It's again the book being heavy upon the movie. The review on IMDb talks of the lack of chemistry between the protagonists. Well, it was always going to be difficult being otherwise, when you having read the book - most people who have seen the movie uptil now have read the book, considering the fact that it's been just one week and it has released only today in India - fully well know the story and are half expecting the characters to say what you are thinking. Your mind outruns the movie and when things begin to happen as predictably, you begin to lose interest. No wonder people complained of having to wait for the picture to finish. Nevertheless, that should be no excuse for its makers. The emotional and dramatic content could and should - with a script like this no! - have been raised several notches. The scene, for example, where Langdon figures out the code for the cryptex, even though heavy on effects, fails to make the dramatic impact it was capable of.
All the same, considering the sheer volume of facts that Dan Brown has enamoured us with in his work, the script writers and later the editors deserve special praise. The script i would say - and I am quite sure atleast Mr. Brown would agree - is a heavily edited form of the original. However whatever remains after the editing sticks more or less true to the book. The cutting and tailoring the work was really necessary, as you do not want the movie do be some National Geographic documentary simply pushing information down your throat, which i admit to having felt at a point - something near about four points would be more like it - while into the novel.
Final verdict: it's a three star, which translates into Good. For the time being watch the trailor below which contains one of the best special effects scenes in film.
PS: No I am not trying to refer this to some person with initials PS, - you will know why I say this when you read the book or see the movie - but to all you few readers who cared to read this far all the way down, I am into my fourth post and still have no comments; you either like what i write or you do not, whichever way it is, I need to be urgently informed. Surely you can do that as the trailor video loads.
Let's face it, turning a bestseller into a movie has always been a tough ask, leave alone a book which is probably the most read by the current population on planets earth and mars. So before moving any further, if you are reading this to decide whether you should go for the movie or no, i would say that it is a must see if you have not read the novel. Nonetheless if you have, then i'd tell you not to hurry. For, even the crictics at Cannes would have been more merciful had the movie premiered in 2012 or so. People need time to forget about the book; it gets big upon the film and clearly so. While a book and it's reader have all the pages and time respectively, to relish the description of the Louvre, a movie has just about all of a five second shot; and you have to take it all in one eyeful as against a novel where the mind is fed in a linear fashion and has to its aid a storyteller who takes pleasure in pointing out the fine nuances of the structure.
Coming to the performances, it's again the same story; could have been much improved. Mr. Tom Hanks, well we all have seen you do much better than this. Having said that, if on seeing the movie you feel that Tom Hanks with his Harvard professor hairstyle - Hollywood always gives its professors long hair - does not quite resemble the Robert Langdon you had imagined while reading the novel, I guarantee that after watching it you shall never remember that face again. For Audrey Tautau, once again, a job well done but no more than that. Silas's role is a well etched one - I really do not know the names of the other people in the cast - His is one strong performance, be it the fight sequences where he once swoops down upon Langdon or his corporal mortification scenes. He and Tom Hanks can be safely said to be the best thing about The Da VInci Code. The other actors have not really done anything special. The character of Lee Teabing which was so central to the plot needed some careful development. Even the guy playing cop, though good, was no where near his French Kiss days.
On second thoughts, it is not so much the actors' fault. It's again the book being heavy upon the movie. The review on IMDb talks of the lack of chemistry between the protagonists. Well, it was always going to be difficult being otherwise, when you having read the book - most people who have seen the movie uptil now have read the book, considering the fact that it's been just one week and it has released only today in India - fully well know the story and are half expecting the characters to say what you are thinking. Your mind outruns the movie and when things begin to happen as predictably, you begin to lose interest. No wonder people complained of having to wait for the picture to finish. Nevertheless, that should be no excuse for its makers. The emotional and dramatic content could and should - with a script like this no! - have been raised several notches. The scene, for example, where Langdon figures out the code for the cryptex, even though heavy on effects, fails to make the dramatic impact it was capable of.
All the same, considering the sheer volume of facts that Dan Brown has enamoured us with in his work, the script writers and later the editors deserve special praise. The script i would say - and I am quite sure atleast Mr. Brown would agree - is a heavily edited form of the original. However whatever remains after the editing sticks more or less true to the book. The cutting and tailoring the work was really necessary, as you do not want the movie do be some National Geographic documentary simply pushing information down your throat, which i admit to having felt at a point - something near about four points would be more like it - while into the novel.
Final verdict: it's a three star, which translates into Good. For the time being watch the trailor below which contains one of the best special effects scenes in film.
PS: No I am not trying to refer this to some person with initials PS, - you will know why I say this when you read the book or see the movie - but to all you few readers who cared to read this far all the way down, I am into my fourth post and still have no comments; you either like what i write or you do not, whichever way it is, I need to be urgently informed. Surely you can do that as the trailor video loads.
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