Ron Howard has managed with his new movie The Da Vinci Code to do what I wasn't sure was possible. He has constructed a movie thriller with only two elements: Expository scenes and chases. Perhaps I should give the writer some credit, since we do that so rarely these days. Regardless of who is responsible, if you are looking for a film in which the whole movie is long, boring moments of excruciatingly detailed and ludicrous plot development followed by bland chase sequences, well then this is the movie for you.
Some claim it is pointless to retell the plot since everyone has read the book. I actually didn't. Nor did several people I know. Besides recaps fill up space. Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon. Langdon is a symbologist. Some would bicker that he is actually a semiologist, but that great aid to our day the Oxford English Dictionary has both words, so potato, potato. Langdon is called to the scene of a grisly murder. The investigator thinks he is guilty, another thinks he is innocent and bam. The chase is on.
As Langdon and the sympathetic cop (a cryptologist named Sophie played by Audrey Tautou) run they learn or explain to each other tidbits of an elaborate church coverup regarding Jesus. They even go to get the help of an Englishman whose field of study is the exact thing they are caught up in. This is extraordinarily convenient for the two fugitives. Ian McKellan is the convenient character and he does play the role with the delight of a teacher showing you something he thinks is really cool but it doesn't stop it from being exposition.
There is also a parallel plot of an Albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany) and a powerful Bishop (Alfred Molina). More chases and more exposition and we finally get the end. Whew! There we receive more exposition! This movie is long. Long and uninteresting and laughable when it deals with history. The only thrill I felt was in the previews section when I saw the new Superman Returns trailer. If Ron Howard works hard enough, I'm sure by his next movie, he can actually do away with the action all together and we can just get down to the basics. People telling other people what is going on. Or maybe he could just film someone with a great voice reading a book from cover to cover.
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