The DaVinci Code has to be a first for me!!! **Spoilers**

First time I have ever seen a movie adapted from a book that actually pretty much stayed true to the book. Followed the plot line, characters in the movie were all in the book and no preposterous change to the ending. Sure, there were a few things cut from the book (like there was actually a Cryptix inside the Cryptix in the first book) but in general watching the movie was just like reading the book.

I enjoyed the movie, heck I might even see it again. It wasn't made to be an action pack movie - it was made to be a puzzle based on historical facts & debates about the history of the bible and Jesus. The plot may have been fictional but the events included in the book/movie are all real: Priory, Templar, the debate over whether Jesus was divine or just a man, the history of how the bible was created and especially the debate whether Mary Magdeline & Jesus were 'married' or if she was just a prostitute. Ron Howard took the time to include this back history into the movie whether through flashbacks or actually seeing the events happening with Hanks & Tautou a part of it (I liked how they showed the pair entering Westminster Abbey and you were seeing Sir Isaac Newton's funeral).

The movie gets 2-thumbs up from me. I think the reason why reviewers trashed some of the movie was that it wasn't an Action-Movie, which is something expected around this time of the year (This weekend was a common release date for some of the biggest action movies of all time including most of the Star Wars movies). For Ron Howard to make it an action movie he would have cut the book up and rewrite the script completely differently. And for this fan of "The DaVinci Code" I'm glad that they stuck with the book.

BTW, it was a great cast although I really hate that hairdo that Tom Hanks had. It made him look older. And I thought Audrey Tautou did a great job in her first major American-made movie. Let's hope we see more of this talented actress!

I read the book, and was excited about the movie until I heard the reviews. Thanks to your endorsement I might go after all. Especially since hubby won't mind an actual plot as long as there is plenty of action...Men! ;-) Thanks again!

didn't you find the changes to Robert Langdon's character and the Church's role to weaken the story? The Robert Langdon of the book absolutely believed in the existence of the Priory and already was well acquainted with the true nature of the Grail. The Robert Langdon of the movie called the Priory a myth and thought the Grail was a cup until their visit to Teabing. I thought that weakened both Langdon and the story.

I was also unhappy with the change made to the role of the Church - the secret council Aringarosa met with, and the "non traceable bearer bonds" they gave him. In the book, Aringarosa was not working in cahoots with a secret council; the money he was paid was a bribe regarding the revocation of Opus Dei's Vatican prelature status, and the money was specifically in Vatican bonds (Teabing wanted to be sure the Church would be blamed if something went wrong).

I didn't mind so much the changes necessary due to time constraints (the library scene, the second cryptex), but the above two bothered me. I also wondered why the movie suggested that Sauniere was not Sohpie's grandfather.

I mean, the movie was almost 2.5hrs. If anything, the movie made Langdon out to be an unbiased scholar about the whole thing instead of the devote following like Teabing was. If anything it helped to contrast those two characters who took very different routes at the very end.

I think the changes about the Church & Council was to distance the movie from the Catholic Church. Instead of having the church & the pope involved with the plot it was instead just a set of rogue catholics priests doing the dirty work. It was a way for the movies to appease the catholics.

ANd I although I remember them mentioning about Sophie and her grandfather (in the book it wasn't clear at the beginning) it didn't really bother me at the end. I mean the main concept that her 'grandfather was who he was and was suppose to protect her' was clear

the Church and the Pope were NOT involved - they had no idea what Aringarosa was up to. He took that on himself without the knowledge of the church. If the movie was trying to appease the Catholics, creating a rogue secret council probably wasn't the way to do it.

The Robert Langdon of the book wasn't a devoted Grail follower like Teabing, but he WAS knowledgable in the area, which makes sense given his field of study. That the Robert Langdon of the movie was somewhat clueless about the true nature of the Grail weakened the character, I think.

The fact that Sauniere was Sophie's grandfather was of some import in the book. In the movie, the sudden appearance of Sophie's grandmother at the end didn't make much sense, as she was never mentioned before in the movie. The situation in the book of Sophie being raised by her grandfather and her brother being raised by their grandmother and each being unaware that the other had survived the crash was changed by the movie. In the movie the grandmother appeared out of nowhere, and there was no reunion with a surviving brother - that part was just eliminated.

I haven't read the book in like a year (thus my cluelessness about the church involvement) however I do recall that Sophie's family members were mentioned at the end of the book. The young man at the church was suppose to be her 'deceased brother' because the priory felt it was important to separate the two. In the book, I was under the impression that the grandparents split up after the car accident and each raised one of the two surviving kids. The grandmother raised the boy in England near the Roselyn Church and the grandfather raised Sophie in Paris. That way the children were both hidden but incase something happened to one of them there was a good chance the other would survive

The only thing I can think about Langdon's knowledge about the grail was that if they made him too knowledgeable the book would get into more of a discussion and they had to cut back some. Best to just have the one expert make a few statements and move on with the movie. Since Teabing turns out to be a baddie it was best to make him look fanatic which would make Langdon look pretty normal.

the reunion between Sophie, her brother, and her grandmother, and the explanation of what her grandparents had done and why. Those who have not read the book would not know that, though, thus in the movie the sudden appearance of a grandmother and a revelation that Sauniere was not actually Sophie's grandfather made absolutely no sense.

Langdon need not have been portrayed as the fanatic Teabing was. He could have retained the same knowledge he had in the book without interfering with Teabing's character. The telling of the story to Sophie was Teabing's anyway.

That the Robert Langdon of the movie was somewhat clueless about the true nature of the Grail weakened the character, I think.

I think that made for a better movie scene, though, since two old guys agreeing with each other isn't that interesting. Script writers often have to make a character ignorant in order to let the knowledgable character talk to the audience. The other way is to get the characters mad, since when people are mad they say stuff everybody in the room already knows.

Sophie Neveu was clueless about all of this. But to the point if they had both Langdon & Teabing experts on the matter then the movie would have plodded on which as much as I enjoyed the movie it did tend to do.

Robert was the expert on symbology whereas Teabing was the subject matter expert on the holy grail

to Sophie his way. I don't think they needed to weaken Langdon to strengthen Teabing.

I wish it had a bit crisper pacing. It seemed to "go flat" frequently after a sequence completed.

Personally, I think they SHOULD have altered the story a bit and perhaps consolidated one or two characters and sequences.

There were only 9 characters that had important roles in the movie: Langdon, Neveu, Neveu's grandfather, the cop, Silas, Agringosta (sp?), Teabing, Teabing's servant and the guy who ran the bank. To remove one of them from the movie would have put major wholes in the plot even with the minor characters like Teabing's servant, the cop, and the bank guy. They seemed like they could be removed but each of them had an important role with plotline and it would have been difficult to combine any of them.

If anything, it showed the reaches of the Catholic Church to protect the secret that these minor characters would somehow plot to stop Sophie & Robert

Yeeah!!!

Well, I better not go and see it then - I'll be wanting to throw things at the screen. ;)

The plot may have been fictional but the events included in the book/movie are all real: Priory,

You do realise that the Priory of Sion was a hoax invented in the late 20th century by a group of three French men, who admitted as much back in the 1980s? I fear that Mr. Brown's historical research is as bad as his knowledge of London parking.

loosen your cilice a notch.

A penchant for historical accuracy = self-flagellation. What an idiot I am sometimes.

Or alternatively what utter bull-shit some others here spout. :shrug:

Many fans (and foes) of the book want to believe it is more than just a novel. Kind of like those who believed that the Blair Witch Project was for real. Those who believe that the Grail is actually the remains of Jesus' wife buried in the Louvre should probably lay off the acid.

a fiction

not history

not doctrine

not theology

relax

have some fun

Each of which is inaccurate in some measure - several are entirely inaccurate.

The Birth of a Nation was fiction - but if people started claiming that it was 'based around facts' then I'd be pretty concerned.

As to how I enjoy myself, I'll go with things which aren't packed full of bad writing, bad research, bad history (it does contain history and gets it pretty much all wrong) &c.

Now that's funny.

:toast:

Wow! did you know that the star of david is actually mad up of 2 triangles? Like WOW! He had to be one of the least expert experts I've read of. Have you read the DaVinci Cod? A satire on DVCode?

his hair-do is that god awful mullet.

...but not in this movie.

Twins has great hair, I have great hair. Tom has so-so hair.

I have a thing for guys with thick dark curly hair having wasted about 10 years of my life with one

A mullet is short on top/front and long in back.

Is Langdon's age ever specified in the book? Hanks is 49.

This is one time when the book ws better than the movie, which is often the case -- for me, anyway. But I was amazed at how plodding and dull a movie was made out of a page-turning thriller novel. Usually those make pretty good summer blockbusters. The acting was fine, but the pacing and the dialogue were just plain wooden. There was no sense of building tension, and even the action scenes didn't keep my attention. I actually dozed off a time or two, and I am not usually the sort who does that. I am re-reading the novel right now, and it reads like it should have made a terrific movie -- sort of a more sophisticated "National Treasure." What happened? :shrug:

National Treasure was NOT based on a book so the script writers didn't have to worry about what billions of fans of the book would think of the movie. So even though both were treasure hunter movies, National Treasure was more of an action based movie whereas TDC wasn't. "Sahara" was another treasure hunt movie but from what I read it barely was like the book but then again the book wasn't a hot best-selling book so again, you wouldn't have fans trying to compare the book vs. the movie.

I think TDC biggest problem was people assumed it was an Action Thriller when it was more of a crime Investigation filled with historical information. See, I'll be honest, even in the book there were sections that I skimmed over because it was a bit too tedious but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. The movie was parsed out just as the book was - quick seens with plenty of fact-filled information about the history of Jesus & the bible. Had they cut out the 'discussions' that you and even the critics found boring they would have lost the reasons at the end of why even bother finding out what all this stuff was.

I think those who believe they are watching an Action Thriller will be disappointed. The movie was to make you think about these things that to be honest are not fiction but questions that mankind have had about the bible, jesus & god for over 2 milliniums

The discussions and the history and all that worked in the novel, in a way they didn't work in the movie. I liked the sense that Dan Brown did a lot of research, and not just on the Holy Grail and symbology and Mary Magdalene and all that. There was one scene in the book, which I'm re-reading, where he'd even taken the trouble to research bank security procedures. This book should have worked as a movie, but somehow it lost something in translation.

Who in the hell would assume that movie was an Action Thriller?
:rofl: I forgot about all the dim bulbs out there!:rofl:

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's the only Ron Howard movie I will buy on DVD, but even so, Howard still should not have been allowed to do this movie. He doesn't know how to do anything except plod and make things wooden, and the studio should have asked an artist, not a Thomas Kinkade, to do the movie.

I also think he made Langdon too much an empty vessel who only reacted to things, unlike his book character.

And I'm with others who mentioned up and above that there was no reason to change the characters, especially to make Langdon so dumb. The book would work perfectly taken directly and put onto film - there is no reason to rewrite anything for the purpose of making it "work better" on film.

I'm just really more of a fan of non-fiction, and fictional books and movies don't hold my interest so much. Although I did like this book very much. But I only read it last week, and maybe that was the problem. Too soon to compare.

1) The "Priory of Sion," it has been well-established, is a hoax fabricated by a French Nazi-sympathizer named Pierre Plantard in the years after WWII. The "Dossiers Secrets" were actually forgeries created by Plantard and placed by him in the Biblioteque Nationale in the late 1950s. (Plantard himself admitted to the hoax in a French court in 1993 -- for more on this whole story, check here.)

2) There was an order of Knights Templar, but they had nothing to do with medieval cathedral-building. They were suppressed by force, but not by the Pope -- rather, by King Phillip of France, who wanted to get his hands on the money they made from their banking system to finance his private wars. There is no notion, until launched by certain conspiracy theorists of the past thirty years, that they held any "secret" about Jesus -- merely that they held too much money for their own good.

3) While the debate over Jesus's divinity or lack thereof has continued among the general populace for two millenia, the notion that no Christian ever thought of Jesus as God until the Council of Nicea is about as ludicrous as they come -- as even the most cursory examination of Christian documents over the first centuries makes abundantly clear, the divinity of Christ was an unquestioned principle within the Church from the earliest days. (By the way, despite what DVC claims, there was never a vote at Nicea over whether or not Christ was divine -- the actual debate was over whether there was a time when God the Father existed and God the Son did not. Obscure? Pretty much so, unless you're deeply into theology. But a far cry from being a vote over "whether Jesus was divine or mortal" -- by the way, orthodox Christian theology has always held him to have been both.)

4) Likewise, similar documents show beyond a doubt that the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were generally accepted as the standards for Christian belief several hundred years before Nicea. They certainly were not "commissioned by Constantine" in the fourth century. Incidentally, the canon of the New Testament developed slowly by consensus, and was not fixed at Nicea.

5) Although being married and having a family would certainly not be a stumbling block to belief in Christ as being the incarnation of God (after all, if he was truly human as well as divine, he could be expected to live a truly human life in all details) in orthodox Christianity, the reason that Jesus has always been believed to have been single is that there's no evidence that he wasn't. And Brown's technique to claim otherwise (which, among other things, relies on the Aramaic meanings of a word in a gnostic text which was never in Aramaic in the first place) borders on the laughable. I would also add that nowhere in scripture is Mary of Magdala referred to as a prostitute -- that came about over five hundred years later, from a sermon by Pope Gregory the Great, who apparently mixed up two adjacent passages from the Gospel of Luke, and assumed that the unnamed "immoral woman" of one chapter was Mary of Magdala, who makes her first appearance in the next chapter. And, despite Brown's claim that the Church denigrated Mary in order to suppress her role in Jesus's life, the fact is that she is recognized as one of the major saints in the Orthodox and Catholic calendars (her feast day is July 22nd), and has been given the title of "apostle to the apostles" -- some denigration!

The fact is that virtually all of Brown's claims are not only easy to debunk, but laughably so. As I have pointed out before, all it would take is one class in Religious History 101 from the most secular of universities to show that the "facts" in DVC are, by and large, hokum. It relies, for its persuasiveness, on people who uncritically come to the conclusion of "it must be true, because I read it in a best-seller" or "...because I saw it in a major Hollywood movie." That's the sort of "thinking" I would expect from devotees of Fox News, not the denizens of DU. To use the movie's tagline, "seek the truth"...if you do, you'll find that DVC, both book and movie, contain precious little of it.

I think you give him far too much credit in saying he "mixed up" the two passages in Luke; many scholars believe what he did was quite deliberate (can't have a woman actually ranking up there with the male disciples, after all). It was one in a long, long line of attempts by the church to diminish and subjugate the women in the historical tales.

I knew all this stuff already, but was beginning to think I was the only human being on earth who did.

saw her in Amelie and She Loves Me/She Loves Me Not.

My wife already read the book. Now I'm going to.

Screw the stupid critics. The movie goers have already voted with their pocketbooks and proved the critics wrong.

they said that sales in countries that had the most protests tended to have higher than normal ticket sales.

People need to realize that the best way to protest a movie is to not talk about it. The fact that religious nuts made a big stink about it only gave it more appeal.

She's sort of Hepburn-esque.

remind of Audrey Hepburn.

The movie is actually He loves me/He loves me not, I love that movie. She is oh so good.

:popcorn:

I rarely go to see the movie after reading the book because they're usually a disappointment.

:hi: