The DaVinci Code (2006)

Rating:

Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan and page after page of obtuse exposition

Here’s the abridged version of The DaVinci Code: “Hey, funny thing about Mary Magdalene. She was – It’s an evil albino! RUN!”

Here’s why The DaVinci Code sucks as a story. The opening scene is a portentous and pretentious juxtaposition of some nameless old fart being murdered in a Paris museum (I don’t recall them ever identifying it as the Louvre for us) and Tom Hanks standing on stage in an auditorium elsewhere in the city giving a jibber-jabber speech about symbols in everyday life. Hanks is then called to the murder scene for a probable investigative reason and we find out that the cops are dead convinced that Hanks is the killer. Thus ensues the two-day chase that fills this two and a half hour movie.

Granted, the top cop (Jean Reno, who should know better) has been told by a trusted source that Hanks is guilty, but if he asked that most basic of cop questions, “Where were you at the time of the murder,” Hanks would’ve said, “I was standing on stage in front of 200 or 300 bored eyewitnesses,” and they would’ve had to send Hanks home. No movie. Oh, and if the freaking Louvre had, I don’t know, video cameras, security guards and the kind of laser/motion-detector security we see in every goddamned movie with an art or jewel thief in it, also, no movie. The fact that the movie hinges on such a gaping chasm of a plot hole from the very start does not bode well.

What ensues is Tom Hanks and pretty cop symbologist (the French pseudo-FBI has esoteric symbologists on staff?) Tautou running from one ancient ruin of a church to another, with Hanks pausing to misrepresent the history of art or the Catholic Church while they catch their breath.

The story relies on so many coincidences and improbable coincidences that it’s just unbearable. One fun game, if you must see it, count on your fingers how many people have lines in the film who turn out not to be trying to kill Hanks and Tautou. I’m not sure you’ll use more than the one finger I most want to show Ron Howard and writer Dan Brown. You certainly won’t use up one hand.

I’ve read the book. Worst thing I’ve ever read, but that’s only because I’ve never read more than one exquisitely awful passage of “The Bridges of Madison County.” But like “Bridges,” I figured tone-deaf writing could be turned into a passable flick by a decent director. I was wrong.

I saw the film with the perfect audience for it. My companion had not read “The DaVinci Code” (yeah … she’s the one) but had read “Angels & Demons,” Brown’s previous novel, which had also starred the character played by Hanks. Ten minutes in, she was telling me how bored she was. She perked up when Ian McKellan entered the picture, finding his scenery-chewing giddiness charming. It’s worth commenting that SPOILER ALERT when McKellan is revealed as the film’s ultimate bad guy, and can’t decide which of our heroes to hold at gunpoint to make the other cooperate, she merely giggled and sighed, and didn’t give a crap when he was promptly dispatched.

And that’s the problem. On paper, the book was bad prose that rocketed along. Every short chapter ended with a twist (or an info-dump of spurious history) and the story moved at the breakneck pace of a runaway train. That curious vitality, the one thing the source material sort of had going for it, is killed by Ron Howard with all the efficiency of a hog butcher. The film never has any fire or tension, and Tom Hanks appears to have been medicated throughout the shoot. Audrey Tautou is charming and beautiful, but only at about 30 percent wattage, trapped as she is in this dreary and unsubtle conspiracy saga.

The film gets one star instead of zero because it’s reasonably competent filmmaking — the camera is in focus — and something has to distinguish it from “Battlefield Earth.” It’s actually impossible to recommend this to anyone, even the mouthbreathers who think the novel was the best thing they ever read, because even those people are likely to find this film tepid. So, yeah, no Oscars for Ron Howard. If, however, this overlong and underlit waste of celluloid finally kills the cult of the novel (and stops stupid American tourists from lecturing European tour guides about the repressed “Sacred Feminine” in famous works of art), Opie might be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize or a Congressional Medal of Honor or something.

FIVE DEGREES of SEPARATION
Okay, this section is usually done on the premise of, “If you like this movie, you should see these ones, too.” But, really, if you like this movie, you should stop watching movies. You should stick with television. And I’m not talking “Lost” here, or even “CSI: Miami.” I’m talking, “Elimi-Date” or, maybe, “Deal or No Deal.” Or that one where Joe Rogan makes silicone bimbos eat larvae.