The Da Vinci Code's Plot Thickens

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Da Vinci Code's plot thickens

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suggests Christianity is a giant hoax

 

 

By Jason Silverman| Also by this reporter13:00 PM May, 19, 2006

 

 

 

 

An atypical thriller, The Da Vinci Code has its own brand of thrills, including a murderous monk, Vatican-approved espionage and the suggestion that Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton were goddess-worshipping pagans.

 

And how often do we get to see a film that suggests Christianity is a giant hoax?

 

 

 

The Da Vinci Code certainly won't placate any of the religious groups who, after the publication of the 2003 novel, made author Dan Brown their public enemy No. 1. But anyone with a taste for conspiracy and heresy will get their kicks from this entertaining, provocative and slick piece of blockbuster filmmaking.

 

 

Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon, a Harvard history professor specializing in religious symbology. He's just written a book on the divine feminine -- the idea that women hold equal spiritual power to men -- and is on tour in Paris.

 

 

After being pulled into a murder case involving a prominent curator at the Louvre, Langdon and policewoman Sophie Neveu (an unconvincing Audrey Tautou) find themselves on a scavenger hunt. Da Vinci's paintings hold clues; so does Newton's tomb.

 

 

 

Langdon and Neveu piece together a history of church-led deception.

There's not an awful lot of flashy filmmaking on screen, despite the movie's reported $200 million budget. Da Vinci's best fireworks come from its dense, conspiracy-driven plot.

 

 

Citing all kinds of arcane religious history -- secret societies, the "real" Holy Grail and the obscured past of Mary Magdalene -- Da Vinci crams a dissertation's worth of theory, research and innuendo into its 168 minutes.

 

 

 

The film makes its points, but it's very chatty, and Brown's purple prose can sound goofy coming out of Hanks' and Tautou's mouths.

Partly as a cover-up, director Ron Howard uses frequent flashbacks. Grainy, digitally constructed scenes take us to ancient Rome, the Council of Nicaea (which he depicts as a shadowy, acrimonious confab) and into the characters' pasts.

 

 

These moments feel like high-end History Channel re-enactments. That's probably fine with Brown, who is on record saying that his fiction is entirely fact-based.

 

As a kind of theological X-Files, Da Vinci Code asks some what-ifs that can't help but lodge in your brain. It's hard to imagine a chewier film reaching the mall this summer.

 

 

 

See Also

 

The Real Da Vinci Code

Typo Confounds Kryptos Sleuths

Daniel Clowes Talks Confidential

Hey, Hey, It's Michael Nesmith

 

Guns, Germs, Steel and Now, TV

Batman Begins on the Right Foot

Solving the Enigma of Kryptos