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American Theocracy - Kevin Phillips »

As cheesy as the book was, The Da Vinci Code works a little better in that format than as a movie. What was great about the book was not it's plot or it's characters or it's action but it's academic theories. That's a challenge to translate into a watchable summer blockbuster but Ron Howard doesn't particularly rise to the challenge. Instead he falls back on his glowy word, A Beautiful Mind visual trick that make decoding anagrams look like it takes mutant powers rather than concentration. The quick history scenes work a little better when he uses them and then there's the hi tech dragging and dropping of elements of the Last Supper which I didn't care for. Kind of a cheesy, Hollywood approach to technology that takes me out of the story every time they do things like that.

The most annoying thing about the movie though is how apologetic it is. Tom Hanks plays Professor Disclaimer who runs around shouting things like "Of course, it's just a myth! We don't really know for sure that any of this is true" everytime they uncover some new hidden secret about Jesus. The book at least took it's conspiracy theories seriously and as the Robert Langdon character uncovered each bit of secret history, he drew on his knowledge of these events and was definitive about his theories. This mixture of fact with suppostion is why a lot of people might have read the book and thought the theories were proven fact. It at least made you feel it was possible and that is what was cool about the book. The movie won't let you get so caught up in it like that. I almost groaned when towards the end, Professor Disclaimer reaches out to all the nervous Christians in the theater and assuringly pats their hands saying "All that matters is what you believe." I believe Ron Howard is a pussy.

There's something to be said that in these days of politicians pandering to Christian voters, Dan Brown was able to write a book that claimed that Jesus was just a regular guy and that the Catholic church is historically corrupt and evil and he still made more money than god.

All that said, the movie isn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. It's mostly just too long and drawn out. And if you haven't read the book you might enjoy it since it will be the first time you're exposed to the ideas it presents.

Posted at May 23, 2006 04:37 PM