The Da Vinci Code

Robert Langdon: I'm into something here that I cannot understand.

You know what popped into my head when he said that? That scene in "Big" where Tom Hanks attended an office meeting for the first time as an "adult," and he raised his hand at the end of the presentation and he said, "I don’t get it."

Neither do I. I mean, what is Tom Hanks doing in this movie? Isn’t his time, and ours for that matter, better spent with a more worthy movie like, oh I don’t know "Big Again," or "Toy Story 3"?

And I was severely disappointed with Audrey Tatou’s presence in the movie. Not that I could ever think her performance was bad (side note: I have adored her ever since I saw her in "Amelie"), I was just disappointed she was in it. She’s better than that. Are there no other French female actresses out there?

I'm not going to talk about the book, cause frankly that's been done and I'm just too tired to start a debate with any of you. That and this is a movie review, not a book review. But I would've preferred to have seen "Angels and Demons" on the big screen. I preferred A&D anyway.

I walked out of the movie theater feeling like I wish I had never read the book before I saw the movie. I never got the feeling from Langdon that he even knew what he was talking about, except for the fact that he's very very good with anagrams. Same thing with Sophie, I couldn't buy the reason why she had a falling-out with Sauniere. They kept skirting around that little piece of history, that it ended up with Langdon just blurting it out, "give, woman! WTF happened??" (No, he didn't really say that, but if you are reading this, I'll assume you already saw the movie). And when she finally shared her story, it didn't seem too traumatic to me. What? You don't encounter ritualistic orgies in your neighborhood? I call it Wednesday night.

The only character I actually liked was Silas (Paul Bettany). One scene that stuck to my mind was when Silas confronted the Nun after discovering the stone tablet that lead to nowhere. For some reason, I was eerily moved by how he calmly exercised the last rites for the person he just killed.

Then there's Jean Reno, another Frenchy favorite of mine. He didn't seem all that intimidating to me. His obsession to chase down Langdon came off merely as a nuisance to his good conscience.

It was one letdown after another. But isn't that usually the undeniable fate of a hyped-up book turned into a movie? At least with the first Harry Potter movie, you can shrug it off because it was targeted for a younger, less sophisticated audience. But there's no excuse for the Da Vinci Code, you don't hire sure-bet talents and fall short, you just don't.

But I did get something out of this movie. An addiction to anagrams. Did you know that the anagram to my real full name is: Damnable Injury. Just thought I'd throw that little fact in there for you folks.