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Miscast though he may be, Hanks can't be blamed for writing that would have torpedoed any thespian. On the other hand, he wears a Mickey Mouse watch, so at least fans of the book will like the detail.
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The star, once among the mostly lively and reliable of comedic actors, manages to furrow his brow and look astounded for the entire duration of the film, a feat of endurance, but not acting. He's not a human character, but an amalgamation of pop-up trivia and pensive stares and there's nothing Hanks can do to make him sympathetic, interesting or engaging. You wouldn't want to invite Langdon to a party, because he's the kind of know-it-all who can explain the source of every phrase, the truth behind every accepted historical myth and what wines go best with all meals and feels that with knowledge comes the mandate to convey his information even at inappropriate or irrelevant times. It doesn't help that Robert Langdon is one of the most insufferable supposed heroes in recent literature or cinema. Because Howard recognizes the limits of Brown's repetitiveness, he spices up the conversations with not-quite-evocative History Channel-style flashbacks and, in the case of Sir Leigh's 15-minute monologue explaining the entire movie, an effective little PowerPoint presentation on Da Vinci's "Last Supper." " Character B seems confused and replies, "What's ?" to which Character A says, "Well, I always thought it was a myth, but is supposed to be." Sometimes if there's a third character in the scene, Character A will yield the floor to another expert. Most of the screentime is, like the book, dedicated to condescending retellings of the past, with nearly every scene following an identical pattern: Character A notices a weird object and declares, "Surely that can't be the. What the whole mess has to do with the Vatican, the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail and a deep dark secret involving Jesus will either strike viewers as profound or profoundly silly (Hans Zimmer's bombastic score pushes both reactions to the extreme), but despite some minor tweaking in the final act, there won't be any surprises for Brown's readers. Is he there to unravel the curator's final messages or as a suspect? With the help of police cryptologist Sophie Neveau ( Audrey Tautou) and eccentric scholar Leigh Teabing (Sir Ian McKellen), Langdon is soon fleeing the Paris police (led by Jean Reno's Bezu Fache) and several murderous religious types (including Paul Bettany as psychotic albino Silas). When a curator of the Louvre is found murdered, Professor Robert Langdon ( Tom Hanks) is called in.
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With several million copies floating around in hardcover and paperback, the plot of "The Da Vinci Code" is well known. The failure to acknowledge that the book has a few warts leaves those flaws magnified on the big screen. Clocking in at a soporific 149 minutes, the film adaptation treats "The Da Vinci Code" as gospel, rather than the airplane-read potboiler it was, which I guess means that some of the people who loved the book will love the movie. The Oscar-winning team behind "A Beautiful Mind" seems to have mistaken Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," a fast-paced, childishly written speculative thriller for The Greatest Story Ever Told. You'll have to forgive director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman for being a little confused.