Da Vinci was French

I went to the pre-screen with my buddy at Pacific Place. Luckily, he gets press passes so we bypassed the line which circled around all the restaurants, and then averted the disastrous line upstairs. He gave me a warning: Usually movies that pre-screen the day before official release suck. All the other movie goers had in tow with them copies of The Da Vinci Code. This book is more well read than The Holy Bible today. Its an unstoppable juggernaut that assaults the New York Time Best-Seller list and Barnes and Nobles bank account. The book maybe exciting and a fun history lesson (for things not faith based), but on film the pace is quick and the characters seem a bit contrived and definitely fabricated. From an art history nerd perspective I had a great time seeing the contrasts on the past into future models found in today, and as a Christian thinker I felt unshaken, if at all irritated, in theology. Talking with my friend about it later I told him, "I doubt that any intelligent person will walk out of that movie feeling like they finally understand God."

A big thing I felt through a lot of the movie was that Tom Hanks character Robert Langdon was really flat. He didn't get a lot of lines, and half the time he was sitting around shaking in fear or walking around. Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveau took hold of most of the action sans the elven smile. (sidenote: the famous movie Amelie is actually an expansion of a female character from director Wong Kar Wai's 2nd story in Chungking Express) Everybody's favorite wizard Sir Ian McKellan does a fine job of being the mean old man with delusions of changing the world. If it wasn't for his magic I likely wouldn't have enjoyed the film as much. Unfortunately, our friend Leon is too professional in the film and doesn't drive through walls as we'd like to see him do. The jokes were funny, and I was also laughing at all the old women gasping loudly around me at the shock scenes. The ending goes on and on and on and on... right when you think something should be over, it goes on again, and then you think its over, you see something more. In sum, the film is 18th century French: overgrandiose, unfilling, and not as clever as you thought. Go see it for fun. And advance info on the Louvre for you, it was designed by a Chinese American architect I.M. Pei amongst hard french criticism.

***Cave Dwellers: I can also supply you with the "Good News" in addition to my spare copy of the text Da Vinci Code.