Deciding on DaVinci

I guess the time has finally come for a decision on The DaVinci Code movie. I was one of the millions of people that took in The DaVinci Code on its opening weekend when it netted 77 million dollars. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the movie as a whole. I went in to it expecting it not to be great because I had already read enough to know it would not be near as good as the book.

There was a perplexing aspect to it for me though. The movie moved so quickly through the action that it was basically non-stop the whole way through. Yet, it still managed to drag in parts. It was almost like you are moving at a feverish pace for 20-30 minutes and then ... stop. A five minute long conversation in a room. Then, it was back to the fast moving pace.

This movie is all about the controversy. Honestly, the need Ron Howard, I guess, felt to spell out the controversy really killed this movie in my opinion. He went to great lengths in these long drawn out seens in the middle of the action and twists to lay out the controversy rather than shortening the scenes and having more character development. One of my favorite things about the book was the extent of the character development by Dan Brown. Most of the characters in the movie I thought were poorly developed. I think the background that made them who they were was given way too quickly and without emphasis in most cases.

I will give great credit to Paul Bettany though. He played the character Silas so well. I only wish everyone could have read the book to appreciate how well he did it because the movie doesn't allow you to do that. Overall, I think the cast, Ian McKellan, Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, etc., did a good job with what they were given to develop the movie as best they could. I would be interested to hear what others who have seen the movie think.