The Da Vinci Code

Hello, all! I'm Your Racist Friend, the newest critic! This is my first of many, many reviews to come, so enjoy!

Unlike a lot of Americans, I didn't get very far into The Da Vinci Code.....the book, that is. I read the first chapter or two, and kind of forgot about it. I do remember thinking "This is pretty darn pulpy.....is this what America's reading now?"
Fast forward a few years: A friend lets me borrow Angels and Demons, which I am able to finish. Again with the pulpiness, and it was a quick read, but I had some problems with it. I see Dan Brown as English Professor Wish Fufillment Lit, because of certain elements in his stories. The brainy guy saves the day, because he can speak Sumerian, or something. That brilliant lady scientist? Take her glasses off, and she's a sexy supermodel! That curmudgeonly old guy? Shhhhh, don't tell anybody, but he's secretly the villain!
Fast-forward another year, to the release of The Da Vinci Code film. I planned on not seeing this movie with the rest of America, at first. Not only could I not care less about the source material, but the advance reviews....23% on rottentomatoes.com???? No, thank you! However, I did get roped into seeing this Memorial Day weekend before a screening of X3, so here it is.
For the five of you in the country who have no familiarity with the story whatsoever, TDVC is the continuing adventure of Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a Harvard University professor of symbology, who gets mixed up in a conspiracy to cover up the "real truth" about Jesus Christ and his lineage. On the run with him is Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and eccentric Englishman Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen, making himself more invaluable each year). On their trail is albino monk assassin (yes, you read that right....) Silas (Paul Bettany, not doing himself any favors here.)
I should stop for a minute, and address the religious controversy over this picture, especially to Catholics. I will say that I can understand why some people would be upset over the assertations in this movie, but I will address that with two statements.

1) It's a work of fiction, so everything's cool, ok?
2) It's a very ridiculous work of fiction, so that's even more......that. I think if people took a hard look at how laughable some of the source material here is, they wouldn't be so offended. I mean, an albino monk assasin for crying out loud?

Ahem. Anyway, I thought this movie was going to be Plan 9 From Outer Space bad, but it wasn't, it was just merely bad. I would describe it as a slightly smarter National Treasure with a religious bent. Tom Hanks clearly understands the character, and does as good a job as anybody could do. Audrey Tautou does an ok job in her first (I think.....) English language role. Ian McKellen understands that this kind of material calls for a performance that borders on melodrama, and tears into his role with the kind of abandon we really only see from him, Kevin Spacey, Geoffrey Rush, etc. Paul Bettany's performance is truly reprehensible and ridiculous, but I guess he didn't have much to work with in the first place. Still, I hope that those rumors flying about that he's going to play the Joker in the next Batman movie are just that. The dialogue is mostly fine, although there are some lines of dialogue that border on the unbelievable.

Sophie: "You have eidetic memory?" (Photographic memory, for you non-fancy people.)
Robert: "No, but I can bring up things in my mind that I saw earlier."

*smacks forehead*

In addition, there are other things that don't make sense. In one part, it seems like it's curtains for Robert and Sophie in the back of a truck. Robert carefully pushes a spent handgun shell into the groove of the truck door. When the truck door get closed, the shell goes off, whacking the bad guy in the face! But, it's a spent shell? Maybe it was magic......

I really can't give this movie more than a 1 on the 22 scale. Read a good book instead, but preferably not anything by Dan Brown.