I think it’s the first in movie history that a film caused so much of an uproar in the religious sectors of our society. That even the local Catholic Church started its commercial ad moves as not to dismay their follower’s fate by accepting ideas from this movie. Honestly I haven’t read the “Da Vinci Code,” but have heard much about it since a couple of years back. There was also a time it was so popular that almost everyone in the MRT were reading the said book. But somehow I didn’t get a chance to read it despite the hype.
About the movie I’ll try to be objective at this point on. I haven’t read the book, even its synopsis for that matter; I won’t have a point of reference whether the movie was faithful to the book or not so I’ll solely base my opinion on the movie itself.
With a great ensemble cast, I expect much great acting here. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon was somehow off, I mean he’s great actor but I didn’t get to see his greatness here since the character somehow didn’t fit him. Audrey Tautou is a favourite of mine since I saw Amelie, and it’s the first time I saw her act in an English Film. She did quite well here as Sophie Neveu, I almost forgot about her previous movies wathcing her here. Despite the great actors on the protagonist role, they were overshadowed, in terms of acting, by the other characters here like Ian Mckellen as Sir Leigh Teabing who never seem to disappoint me with his roles and Paul Bettany as Silas, the assassin flagellant monk, where you could actually feel his self inflicted pain just watching him.
The pacing of the movie was disappointingly monotonous throughout. Yes, there are rare gripping moments when I even heard some people watching actually scream from surprise, but at moments when you thought the action was about to escalate, it somehow fails to do so and quickly goes down back to its monotonous tone. I think Ron Howard was being to careful on being faithful to the book that he didn’t risked adding some flavor or spice to the movie as not to be criticized by the book loyalist that it was too Hollywood-ish. But this resulted in a somehow dragging sequence. There was actually a guy snoring at the front seat!
Good thing, if not for the story, mysteries and problem solving plot of the movie, I would have dozed of. What more, I think, for those who have read the book, who already knew what happened. I could imagine it was just a read-through of the novel. But despite the story’s twist and turn, chase and run, it didn’t seem to deliver the intensity we were hoping to see through the end.
The musical score wasn’t even that great. I felt it wasn’t even there, but the ones I’ve heard were not something new to the ears or it’s quite similar to some movies of the past. Not that ground breaking.
I did enjoy some of the historical flashbacks, and thought they were well made, but it wasn’t enough to delve into that “Da Vinci” idea, that this great artist was part of a secret society to protect te holy grail. In truth I thought this moview was more about Leonardo Da Vinci and his works. I guess it I thought wrong and it was all about the holy grail
If this was an Oscar-pruned intended movie, it would seem to fail its purpose for me as it seemed just an ordinary movie, not spectacular at that.
Now my opinion about the banning of the movie, this I’ve got to say. The more you held a movie like this banned or taboo, the more people would want to watch this. If the religious sectors, catholic or not are confident of what they are preaching or teaching is the Truth. They shouldn’t be afraid of any ideas that may dissuade their follower’s beliefs.
The movie somehow hit a nerve since it deals with a major historical and religious icon, Jesus Christ. It’s like the reaction of the Muslims when Mohammed was illustrated in a cartoon. But whether you believe what the movie says (Dan Browns already said this is a fiction) or not, it’s up to each person to search the truth themselves.
Ferdz Decena is an award-winning travel photographer, writer and blogger. His works has found print in publications such as Singapore Airlines’s Silver Kris, Philippine Airlines’ Mabuhay, Cebu Pacific’s Smile and Seair InFlight. He has also lent his expertise to various organizations like the Oceana Philippines, Lopez Group Foundation, Save the Children and World Vision, contributing quality images for their marketing materials.
