Da Vinci Code (Review by Michael Medved)

Eye on Entertainment ^ | Michael Medved

[Choose Ye This Day]

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.

[goresalooza]

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.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Andy needs to kick Opie's ass.

[freeplancer]

My wife and I just saw it tonight and I just did not view it as insulting. I am not defending Hollywood, but it would take a more meaty story than this to insult me. In fact, the guy who wants the world to know about the "truth" of Jesus being married, is portrayed as a kook and criminal. It was kind of boring and not worthy of any controversy in my opinion.

[TheCrusader]

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.

[goldstategop]

Its not even faithful to the novel. A pity that such excellent stars get wasted in this big budget flop of a summer epic.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I thought it wasn't that bad. But it does represent at least a sideways if not frontal hit piece on the Christian faith. And a lot of it is rather BS.

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?

[goldstategop]

This is one of those times the novel is much more satisfying than the film. Its very difficult to translate a novel to the cinema because everything is different. Very few novels come across well in a film adaptation.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[gleeaikin]

"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.

[LowOiL]

Our town movie theather went bankrupt last week. Couldn't of picked a better time IMHO.

[taxesareforever]

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?

He didn't have a cell phone. :)

[the_Watchman]

Apparently until the Babylonian captivity of the Jews around 500 BC, both the male and female were acknowledged in Jewish worship.

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.

[gleeaikin]

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.

[Swordmaker]

If, as the dVC would have it, Jesus was merely a man with no Divinity, why does his umptyeth Greatgranddaughter have healing powers, as hinted at in dVC?

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.

[gleeaikin]

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.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

This movie will have zero impact on true believers. It may even be a blessing, getting nonbelievers to start investigating the truth about Christ for themselves. And that will lead them to God's plan of salvation and redemption from this cursed world, and the fallen, sinful nature we are born into.

[beaversmom]

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[1955Ford]

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"

[beaversmom]

mnehrling; navynucmom; hattend; LibertyLee; 76834; jeremiah; pollyannaish; nuclady; Unrepentant VN Vet; beaversmom; La Enchiladita; Sensei Ern; Jo Nuvark; sofaman;

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