Da Vinci Code, The

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(c) AJMalouin 2006
(19 by Al and 20 by Caryl)
(2006—Ron Howard —USA) (2 hrs 29. Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content.)

This is, simply and purely, a boring movie. Caryl and Al suggest that you avoid it, even if it rains incessantly the entire Memorial-Day weekend. For Al, there was actually much more excitement watching the motionless protesters outside the theatre than there was in watching “The Da Vinci Code” inside the theatre. Caryl saw the movie at a different theatre, at which there were no protesters, so she didn’t have a good time at all.

Chock full of the dogma, symbolism and traditions of one of the world’s several great religions, “The Da Vinci Code” is “hocus” with neither “pocus” nor focus. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou walk through their lead roles without displaying any evidence that they are, respectively, a great scholar or a top-notch policewoman/cryptologist. Tautou drives a car backwards at break-neck speed through traffic as her one silly exhibition of police training. Hanks proves he’s a scholar by having long hair.

Deep sigh.

Hanks and Tautou have no interaction between them at all. This is spite of the fact that they have formed an international team of Running Away Together. Hanks and Tautou are continually running away from people. Caryl nor Al were never exactly sure why they are running nor how they manage to escape in the ways that they do. Their running is pretty lame (pun intended.) Early in the movie Hanks calls Tautou answering machine and hears her say that he is in great danger. The audience doesn’t understand why he is in great danger— and the two of them start running. (Apparently the bad guys have pinned a murder on Hanks but it’s pinned there with all the skill that a Third Grader would administer in applying a “Kick Me!” sign to the backside of a Second Grader.)

But never mind Hanks! The audience is in great danger, also: if they fell asleep and pitched forward, it’s possible to crack their heads on the empty seats in front of them. Twenty minutes into this movie, anyone would be forgiven for praying that this would happen. That kind of excitement would be good compared to what we’re watching on the screen.

Halfway through this funereal turgidity of notentertainment, there is a rather gripping series of scenes in Sir Leigh Teabing’s study. This is where Sir Leigh explains the whole premise of the movie to Tautou. Hanks looks on benignly, using some of his big expressions. Tautou gives four or five examples of her delightfully crooked smile— and then someone breaks in on them and they once again form the team of Running Away Together!!!

Ian McKellen gives an outstanding performance as Sir Leigh, and Jean Remo is sinisterly excellent as Captain Fache. Hanks and Tautou, however seem to have, permaybe, eight facial expressions between them, and there is very little chemistry between the two of them— even though we in the audience are longing for it!

Sooooooooo, who’s to blame for the boredom here? We’d think, first blush, it would fall on Ron Howard, the lily-white director of totally non-controversial movies in which huge dam chunks are ripped out of the main characters chests. Mr. Howard did, after all, give us “Cinderella Man,” in which no one was able to convince us that Russell Crowe was really a heavy-weight (or whatever) boxer. Mr. Howard also gave us “A Beautiful Mind,” in which he and the writer thoughtfully left out one of the most defining aspects of John Nash’s personality— thereby causing The Great Parking Lot Crisis between Al and his friend ET.

More likely, however, the boredom tsunami generates from the fact that the source material is not movie material at all— but jest a book. This could explain the movie’s marketers’ strategy which, simply put, was “You’ve read the book!!! Now see the movie!!!” The movie itself was not released for review by critics. The movie makers counted on the fact that allllll those who had read the book would want to see the movie.

Lame, indeed.

Another reason for the boredom, tied into the first reason, is that solving the movie’s mystery depends on a knowledge symbols and symbolism. First of all the movie characters have to explain to us what the symbols meant in early Church dogma (HEY! QUIT YAWNING!) After that, solving the mystery hinges on the stupid little word plays of which Al is soooo inordinately fond. Example? “…Under a knight entombed by a pope.” (“Not ‘a pope,’ but ‘Alexander Pope!’ Hanks finally screams. “How could I have MISSED that?” he asks.) (“Dude! You’re Tom Hanks!” we answer.)

One more final answer as to why this movie is sooooooooo boring? If there’s one thing Hollywood movies have taught us, it’s that when you’re searching for a tomb it’s far more interesting to have Nazis chasing you. Chased by the clergy is much less fun. So, lose the albino and throw in the Nazi SS.

In the end — which comes far too late in the movie — the Tautou character finally discovers and internalizes (using one more crooked smile!) the fact that she is the last surviving blood relative of Jesus Christ. After it hits her, she simply shakes Hanks’ hand and goes back into the chapel to join the people who are protecting her. (If only someone were protecting the Audience.) Discovering that her police car was double-parked would have been far more exciting ending…for both her and the audience. Hanks then goes back to the Louvre, and the camera shows us Mary Magdelene’s tomb under the glass pyramid out front. Fade to black as we pass out from boredom. Long haircuts and crooked smiles are not acting, and the explaining of symbols on-camera is not movie-making. The movie is just plain boring — which is the biggest crime a movie can commit.