Posted on 05/22/2006 11:29:05 PM PDT by L.A.Justice
Some observers wonder why there’s been so much controversy regarding the movie version of THE DA VINCI CODE, but having finally seen the film I’m astonished that there’s so little.
This very long (2 and a half hours) and very somber exercise amounts to a full-frontal assault on Christianity, explicitly suggesting that the world would be a better place of Christian faith collapsed, and blaming the church (the supposedly deluded faith in “one true god”) for racism, intolerance, sexism, brutality and fanaticism.
In ideological terms, it’s a far more radical film than “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and even more deserving of public objection and condemnation. The argument that it’s just “fictional entertainment” falls apart in face of the movie’s gratuitous and inflammatory preachiness: director and co-producer Ron Howard could have offered an eerie, conspiratorial thriller without repeating the book’s outspoken indictments of Christian orthodoxy and shameless promotion of paganism. At the conclusion of the movie in particular, the lead characters (played by Tom Hanks and French Star Audrey Tautou) speculate on the liberating, peace-making, altogether beneficial impact on humanity if they someday succeed in rebutting the lies of authoritarian, traditional Christianity.
Could anyone feel sincere surprise at the indignant reaction by those of us who believe that today’s Christian faith represents a blessing rather than a curse to this troubled planet? By an large, the film follows the twists and turns of the book though one of the most engaging elements of the novel falls entirely flat on screen.
For readers, Dan Brown provides all sorts of tantalizing, fascinating, arcane historical and theological details -- many of them utterly bogus, of course-- that nonetheless come alive on the page. In the movie, much of this trivia coalescences into large, gooey, indigestible lumps of dialogue and exposition that not even a great actor like Sir Ian McKellen can put across.
As a matter of fact, all the considerable acting talent in the film is wasted, with superbly capable performers like Tom Hanks, Alfred Molina, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno and especially poor Paul Bettany (asked to play a murderous, self-torturing, albino monk) assigned to characterizations that remain pathetically underdeveloped, one dimensional, and feeble. We know, for instance, that Hanks’ Harvard “Professor of Religious Symbology” is a world famous academic star, but unlike the book there’s no hint as to whether he’s got a wife, or girlfriend, or boyfriend, or lovable sheepdog waiting for him back home in Cambridge. Again in contrast to the book, there’s no love scene between the two main characters and the presumably inevitable attraction between them never materializes in any sense.
The plot begins with a murder, of course: with a Louvre curator shot by a Catholic fanatic but left with enough time as he bleeds to death to arrange his nude body in a provocative style, while writing coded messages partly in his own blood, partly with invisible ink. Hanks and “police cryptographer” Tautou begin investigating the death (the victim, it turns out, is her grandfather) but the tough French detective (Jean Reno) assigned to the crime tries to arrest them before they get away. Eventually, they make their way to the lavish estate of a crippled scholar (McKellen) who reveals the connection between the rampage of violence in the “biggest cover-up in human history”: a Catholic attempt to suppress the knowledge that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she bore a child whose descendants live on in Europe to the present day, and that the keepers of this sacred secret will someday restore the true male-female balance to Western religiosity. McKellen also insists that Jesus was merely human, and that early Christians began persecuting pagans in ancient Rome, ruining the more enlightened, more sensitive world of the Empire.
The ominous visual style and generally energetic pacing keep the movie purring along, with less tedium than you’d expect in an epic of such conspicuous length. The plot twists and sudden reverses, however seem silly, arbitrary, and entirely contrived --- never growing organically out of the story-line or the thinly sketched characters.
As a piece of cinema, THE DA VINCI CODE is just barely competent enough to influence some gullible audience members to question the ancient story of the Gospels. If the movie represents the beginning of that questioning process, it could spark a religious awakening in some viewers, but director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (who did such wonderful work in last year’s superb “Cinderella Man”) offer smug, supercilious conclusions, not vital or vigorous challenges. RATED PG-13, for disturbing violence and gore, some (male) nudity, and fleeting sex references. TWO STARS.
So far, after listening to most of the audio book, I'd give it half a star. What a lousy novel. Dan Brown is a talentless chimp. Had it not been for the controversial subject matter, nobody would have read this thing.
I'm not about to waste $8 abd 2.5 hours of my life to see it rehashed on screen.
I made up my mind to pass on this one after seeing the trailer online. It's so bad, I couldn't believe it. Even Conan was making fun of it.
Yawn...another overhyped bunch of BS from the Hollyweirdos.
Andy needs to kick Opie's ass.
Many Americans will never intellectually grow beyond MTV and American Idol, that's why the movie version of the book came out so quickly. If you're going to kick up a lying, blasphemous storm against Christ and the Catholic Church, you can't do it with print alone, you need a movie too.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
The plot begins with a murder, of course: with a Louvre curator shot by a Catholic fanatic but left with enough time as he bleeds to death to arrange his nude body in a provocative style, while writing coded messages partly in his own blood, partly with invisible ink.
One wonders, in retrospect, if he had time to leave all of those messages, strip off his clothes and paint his body with his own blood... why didn't he just call an ambulance?
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
"Why didn't he just call an ambulance?"
Guess he forgot his cell phone. Actually, I read the book, found it to be an all-nighter. I can see why the church would be upset. I recently read a book about the conflict between the female godess principle represented by Ashtarte, Ishtar, Isis, and the masculine God principle represented by Yahweh. Apparently until the Babylonian captivity of the Jews around 500 BC, both the male and female were acknowledged in Jewish worship. It was after the captivity that the masculine Yahweh became totally ascendent, particularly because the Babylonians were strong worshipers of the female. Thus by emphasizing the masculine the Jews maintained their separateness/superiority.
Unfortunately this tendancy has been emphasized even more extremely by Islam, especially the fanatical Wahabi form of it which is followed by Saudi Arabia and the Sunni. The Catholic church, with the impetus of Paul, who had little use for women, has maintained this tendancy in Christianity. I suspect that Dan Brown's argument is with the authoritarian anti-female aspect of the Catholic church. Other Christian groups such as the Quakers represent a very different form of Christian worship.
Our town movie theather went bankrupt last week. Couldn't of picked a better time IMHO.
He didn't have a cell phone. :)
I would like to see you substantiate this. There is NO allusion to any deity except Yahweh in the Pentateuch. There were, indeed, false deities worshiped by the Jews. The golden calf of Exodus qualifies. However, this Biblical literature which survives certainly indicates that these were deviations from the worship of the one true God.
Even the concept of a Trinity, God in three natures, has always been repugnant to Jews examining Christ.
A lot of the bible was codified and edited after the Babylonian captivity. Naturally any references to the feminine principle would have been edited out. There is probably information out there at Ashtarte, Ishtar, ancient Hebrew worship, etc.
Is the divine spirit present in the DNA?
But, no, accrording to Dan Brown, et al, Jesus of Nazareth was just a man, no more divine than John Doe... ergo, his umptyeth Greatgranddaughter would be no different than the umptyeth greatgranddaughter of anybody from that time.
IF, then Jesus was nothing Divine, WHY would his wife be anything special?
Maybe the divinity only exists in the females of the line? Then Jesus was just a front man for his wife's startling abilities... and it was really Mary Magdalene who walked on water... oh, that must be a lie... who changed water into wine... oh, too many witnesses... (Holy Blood, Holy Grail says the wedding in Cana was JC's and MM's wedding!)
Let's see, another problem... a couple with one daughter having progeny over 1970 or so years... somehow results in only ONE umptyeth G'grandchild? Haven't these people heard about geometric progression? Gee, if each generation's offspring each only had two children, one boy, one girl, and only count the girls' offspring of one boy, one girl, how many Umptyeth Grandchildren of Jesus and Mary Mag would there eventually be? Let's figure a generation every 20 years... 97 generations... wouldn't that be 296 descendents with the first 2 G'g'children popping out in about 53AD to 56AD... and 4 more in 73AD to 77AD... and 8 more 20-26 years later... andso on????? How many Jesus descendant might their be in in the 95th generation 2006???
Assuming only 4 generations (0 to ~80 years of age) alive at any one time (and assuming miraculous healing and life, then the answer would be 294 minus 291 living offspring... 19,807,040,628,600,000,000,000,000,000 minus 2,475,880,078,570,000,000,000,000,000 or about 17,331,160,550,000,000,000,000,000,000 Umptyeth G'Grandchildren... and since there are only about 6,000,000,000 people on Earth, then we ARE ALL Descendants of JC and MM... and we are up to our eyeballs in cousins...
Now, I may have added or dropped a generation or a few zeros here and there... but you get the idea... The most absurd idea of all is that there would be only ONE heir.
I just went and googled "goddess worship in ancient Israel". There were a whole bunch of references. I didn't read them, because it's late and I am going to bed, but the first sentences definitely indicate that what I said was true.
Da Vinci review ping
Michael makes two uncharacteristic but glaring spelling errors.
"the world would be a better place of Christian faith collapsed,"
"much of this trivia coalescences into large,"
"of" should be "is" and "coalescences" should be "coalesces"
mnehrling; navynucmom; hattend; LibertyLee; 76834; jeremiah; pollyannaish; nuclady; Unrepentant VN Vet; beaversmom; La Enchiladita; Sensei Ern; Jo Nuvark; sofaman;
Michael Medved ping
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