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Reviews Counted:217
Fresh:52
Rotten:165
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: What makes Dan Brown's novel a best seller is evidently not present in this dull and bloated movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code.
Theatrical Release:19-05-2006
Synopsis: Dan Brown's best-selling book THE DA VINCI CODE gets adapted for the big screen thanks to director Ron Howard (CINDERELLA MAN), who helms this big budget production. Veteran actor Tom Hanks stars... [More]
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina
Director: Ron Howard
Although it's handsomely produced on a grand scale and solidly acted by an international cast, The Da Vinci Code somehow manages to drain nearly all the intrigue right out of Brown's jigsaw puzzle of a religious conspiracy thriller.
I felt it moved along a little too quickly, as if a tour guide with a pressing dinner reservation was determined to make all the appointed stops, but didn't linger long enough to let the impact soak in.
A thriller that's cautious, dutiful, competent - good enough to make its pile of money, but not bold enough to capture imaginations the way Brown's book did.
Ron Howard doesn't so much solve The Da Vinci Code as preserve it under glass. It's a bloodless best-seller adaptation, competent but uninspiring, rather like the vast bulk of Howard's long filmography.
Director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man) has reveled in themes of humanity struggling to be great and good. And he finds enough of that idea in The Da Vinci Code to render him reverential.
It is like a cilice itself, confining and constraining the characters, the story and, finally, the audience -- but never drawing blood.
All told, the movie comes off as a too-hurried, too-superficial CliffsNotes reduction of a book that really can't withstand much in the way of simplification.
A film that never rises beyond the workmanlike to the inspired.
... a jigsaw puzzle [that] turns out to be a lot less fun than you hoped it would be when you started piecing it together.
Absent is the pure guilty joy of sequential puzzle-solving; instead of participating in the hunt, we're shoved off to the side as a couple of crashing boors do it for us.
Like a two-bit philosopher working the wrong side of the stone, Howard has managed to turn gold into lead.
On film, The Da Vinci Code is not so much a fascinating puzzle as a prolonged slog through material that resists the screen.
In a marketplace rife with guides for idiots, dummies and the rest of us, this movie stands as the novel's priciest CliffsNotes.
The definitive moment of the movie comes when Ian McKellen actually delves into a lengthy PowerPoint presentation. You would be forgiven for thinking you've somehow slipped into a Columbia Pictures marketing meeting.
The 149-minute film is a crackling rendition of Dan Brown's novel, siphoning off unneeded fat and fancy and leaving us with a streamlined train of a picture that never stops moving.
Despite its two-hour-plus running time, Howard manages to make more sense of it all without dispelling the mystery -- and leaves little time for anyone to ponder any inconsistencies.
As a film derived from a book, The Da Vinci Code isn't a fiasco on the order of The Bonfire of the Vanities nor is it a triumph a la The Lord of the Rings. Instead, it's an acceptable but uninspired simulacrum.
Ideas that are genuinely challenging to people's beliefs don't come from sources like Ron Howard. His movie is a professional, workmanlike effort -- a passable potboiler and not much more.
Only McKellen divines that The Da Vinci Code is supposed to be fun, and his performance becomes an inside joke that leaves McKellen with a smile as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa's.
...the real secret to "The Da Vinci Code" is that there is no secret.
April 21, 2009:
Columbia Awaits Third Da Vinci Code Installment 
Even as it gears up to promote the next installment in its "Da Vinci Code" franchise, "Angels and Demons," Columbia Pictures is making preparations for an adaptation of the next... More...
February 04, 2009:
Exclusive: Inside Pinewood/Shepperton - A Photo Tour
Every year, the BAFTA film awards present a trophy for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Introduced in 1978, the award recognises an organisation or a person's career... More...
October 03, 2008:
Further Reading: Marion Cotillard and Forest Whittaker in Abel Ferrara's Mary
As the NFT in London prepares a Juliette Binoche season, Kim looks at Abel Ferrara's Mary which also stars Marion Cotillard and Forest Whittaker. More...
April 24, 2008:
Angels & Demons Lands Female Lead
Ayelet Zurer has been cast opposite Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code prequel, Angels & Demons. More...
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