Dear readers,
Please allow me to take the day off. I am going to Atlanta to see my parents, and probably see a movie (most like Mehta's "Water," but I'll let you know). As I said before, what I won't be going to see is "The Da Vinci Code."
I am curious, however, to see what people who actually like going to the movies thought of it instead of just hearing from the critics who pretty much universally panned it.
So feel free to leave your comments about "Da Vinci" and let me know what you thought. Peace out.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
"Da Vinci" reax?
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12 comments:
I'll bite.
For the record, I'm a very lapsed Baptist who received an undergraduate comp sci degree from a Jesuit institution (translation: they made me pay for six credits of Catholic theology, where I was told I was going to Hell because I wasn't Catholic. Nice to know there's ONE thing Catholics and Protestants can agree on--the final location of my soul!)
I read The Da Vinci Code, finishing it about 8 hours before I saw the movie last night. The book is a work of fiction, and I'm afraid that I can't even comment on the logic employed in an earlier post comparing this to the NUMEROUS movies that made slavery appear fun or the Holocaust non-existent. I'm a Christian and my ancestors were slaves. I'm far more pissed off when I see slavery misrepresented than someone taking a swipe at De Lawd.
Besides, Jesus doesn't need my defense, and if He does, I need to find another religion. Jewish people are encouraged to question and process the details of their religion, but as Christians, the mere mention of having a thought that wasn't punched into your head by the preacher, priest or the Pope and HOLY HELL THE WORLD IS ENDING! It's controlling bull ess, and I refuse to subscribe to the notion that any mortal man has dominion over my Divine relationship. I came here alone, and I'm leaving alone.
Questioning my faith is how my faith gets stronger. Lapsed I may be, but I'm still here feeling my way through my spirituality. If my religious upbringing hadn't been strong enough to tolerate all I throw at it, I'd be an atheist by now.
It's OK to ask questions, people.
I also take issue with folks who want to complain about something without seeing it. (Save me the "I know what the sewer smells like without having to see it?" How did you know? You smelled it before, darnit!) If one doesn't want to see it, that's one's prerogative. But if you want to protest, at least go see what you're protesting.
I sat through Birth of a Nation because if I, as a critic, were going to point out what's wrong with it, I needed to see it. Nobody tells me what to think.
With that said, The DaVinci Code movie is offensive because it's so damn bad. The entire book is exposition, and the filmmakers, in their attempt to please readers of the book, tries to cram as much exposition into the movie as they can. It's like the class where the professor rambles on and on forever.
Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou (who doesn't get a pass, I don't care how cute she is) are so dour and glum that they can't make the pages and pages of dialogue they spout come to life. In the book, at least, you could feel the excitement of the characters' quest. Here, Ron Howard and company seem to be asking forgiveness by making the movie as lifeless as possible.
Butt naked Paul Bettany and (mercifully clothed) Ian McKellan liven up the proceedings; they know they're in a goofy thriller and milk their performances for all they are worth. When they are onscreen, the Da Vinci Code takes respite from the ho-hum foot dragging of its leads. They save Da Vinci from being an F. I settled on a C-.
Thanks for your thoughts Odie ... sorry you had such a bad time!
I just feel bad for Audrey Tautou .. she is capable of so much more!
Here are the comments I posted on my blog:
The Da Vinci Code has been heavily promoted over the past year. I was hoping for a good film....oh well. The beginning is slow and painful to watch, Ian McKellan's performance salvages the middle and the end lacks the drama that the final reveal deserves. I have always felt that it is very difficult to interpret a book to film, but the fantastical theories of Dan Brown, that made the book a popular page turner, sound ridiculous in this film. I will say that the cinematography and visual techniques used, as the characters explain theories, are excellent. Ron Howard knows how to craft a film, but the tempo, acting and writing are way off. Where there could have been suspense and wonder, we have predictability and tedium.
I think Ian McKellen could have given a good performance in Ishtar ... there isn't a finer actor working today
Interesting stuff Ryan ... I just worry that some dingbat is going take the book a little too seriously and toss a rock through that beautiful pyramid cieling at the Louvre to get to "the truth"
I walked into The Divinci Code not expecting much...but that is the way I approach most movies.
I enjoyed the book when I read it years ago and I have never been happy with a movie adapted from a book that I enjoyed.
I wasn't bored during the movie. That is a good sign. I didn't feel the need to look at the time. Not a bad sign either. Was I annoyed because the ending was different. Yeah, but it was close...so I shouldn't complain.
I didn't hate it. It won't be one of those movies that I watch again, unless I am sick and there is nothing else on TV.
I just worry that some dingbat is going take the book a little too seriously and toss a rock through that beautiful pyramid cieling at the Louvre to get to "the truth"
They wouldn't be any more a dingbat than some of the French folks who have tried it. The French HATE that pyramid, and having been to the Louvre, I can say it really is jarringly out of place.
There were Da Vinci Code tourists there who were walking around saying "wow, this is where such and such happened!" I hadn't read the book yet, so I couldn't make those connections while in Paris. Hanks and company were rumored to be there shooting as well. The biggest "conspiracy" I uncovered there was that, as the classic blues song went, the Mona Lisa really IS a man. It's Leonardo Da Vinci.
Nothing could have saved The Da Vinci Code except a different script. I'm not as enamored of Akiva Goldsman as most people are. His problems with too much dialogue and scene structuring require a director who can overcome them. Opie did a fine job with Cinderella Man, but I thought the twist in A Beautiful Mind was so poorly handled it was laughable. This script is that level of incompetence times 50.
As for Ryan's question as to why they kept Langdon's well trauma, the answer is simple: Goldsman was trying to serve two masters. He wanted to cram as much in so that readers wouldn't be disappointed, but he also tried altering events and outcomes to make the film less offensive to people who had not read the book.
I never walk into a movie expecting the book, and anyone who does is setting themselves up for disappointment. The Godfather is a TERRIBLE novel, a piece of dime store garbage, and they got two (out of three) great movies from expanding and altering the material.
Movies that try to give the reader everything in the novel are incredible failures (see Coppola's The Great Gatsby). Book and film are two different media. The Shawshank Redemption is an incredible adaptation, but the changes from King's novella are what help elevate the film to its deserved classic status.
Books are active, movies are passive.
I'm like Nixon when it comes to architecture ... I don't know anything about it, but I know what I like .. and call me a charlatan, but I LOVE the pyramid at the Louvre
I personally thought the movie was a poor adaptation of the book. It is always very tough for a director to take a book and put it on the screen, since most people already have a preconceived idea of how it should look. But with that said, good directors are always able to take the screenplay and make it jump out at you and really capture how it should be portrayed on the screen. Meaning they basically pick up the "slack" of creating the images where you left on in the book. So anytime a director is able to visually create it more then I could with my mind, I enjoy the movie.
However I feel this was not the case with this movie. I feel I could have created a better movie than Ron Howard. He always seems to do cookie cutter movies, yet he receives great praise. This bothers me.
I too, Phipps, have always wondered why Howard receives such high praise .. I liked him best on "Arrested Development"
Never one to accept defeat graciously, I'm still hoping it has a steep dropoff vs. X-Men, but it's not likely
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