Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (1.5/4 stars)

Yes, I read the book. I wasn't overly impressed.

I saw the film. I was even less impressed.

Book adaptations are always a tricky thing. For every Lord of the Rings (great), you have a Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (pretty bad). The Da Vinci Code (TDVC) film adaptation is on the latter end of the spectrum.

It was a given that the information dump needed to make the book's plot work in the film would be fiendishly hard to pull off. True to form, you're got characters explaining stuff all throughout the film. Tom Hanks doesn't pull it off well, and comes off as a tremendous bore. Ian McKellen does a better job, letting himself go and hamming it up, but it still grates after a couple of minutes. It's so bad, the film's supposed scary-bad dude (Paul Bettany's Silas the Albino Monk) has to ask a nun to explain something to him before he makes mayhem. That's just lame.

Brown's plot peters out about halfway through the novel. It absolutely drags throughout the film. The visuals of the film aren't enough to replace the exposition of the book, simply because Howard has to make the audience look at stuff just so. You get tired of hearing the lectures on pseudo-history.

In an effort to soften the blow of the film on religious types, the screenplay turn Hanks's Langdon into a half-skeptic, which isn't part of the original character. It's really strange when he gets into a dialogue with McKellen's Teabing and takes up an obvious pro-religion tack, which is then clumsily explained away by adding a really weak story about falling into a well, which explains the strange claustrophobia that the movie Langdon exhibits. (The book Langdon has no such affliction.)

McKellen is amusing for a while. Beyond that there is nary a memorable performance. Paul Bettany fails to look menacing, ending up as a caricature. Hanks is almost wooden and so unexpressive that I wish he's yell "Wilson!!!" just to prove he's got emotions. My dear Audrey Tautou is completely wasted in TDVC. Her Sophie Neveu is almost as cold as Langdon. Needless to say, the pairing has no chemistry, and the kiss they shared in the book is excised in the film. Alfred Molina exhibits a fraction of the menace that he exuded as Doctor Octopus. What a wasteland.

Now, Ron Howard knows how to direct a camera. The are many gorgeous shots in the film. However, even he couldn't fix the plot and pacing of TDVC, and I think the effort to keep the film interesting deep-sixed any chance he had of making the characters work. Akiva Goldsman must share some of the blame, as his screenplay left a LOT to be desired. There are many cases where he needed to depart from the book, but he didn't. Okay, maybe it was the studio's call, but it's his name in the credits.

Bottom Line: I didn't have high expectations. The Da Vinci Code still fell flat on its face. With nothing to save it from its plodding plotline and uninteresting characters, I cannot recommend to anyone.