Perhaps it helps to watch The Da Vinci Code with very low expectations. Yet, its many flaws notwithstanding, director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel offers what Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest offered 47 years ago: A twist-filled thrill ride that, like its equally absurd predecessor, never ceases to be intriguing. (For instance, the one individual who believes that The Secret will liberate the world from the evils of religious dogma turns out to be a psychopath – and a naïve and poorly informed one at that.)Īpollo 13 Movie Revisited + Kathleen Quinlan & Crew Images There are narrow escapes of the kind you’d find in comic strips (note: in these days of global warming and skyrocketing gas prices, one such escape must be commended for advertising fuel-efficient vehicles), plenty of deus ex machina resolutions that reveal an appalling laziness on the part of either the screenwriter or the book author (or both), and lots of dime-store philosophizing that titillate without actually challenging anyone’s core beliefs. True enough, the film never soars to the heavens but it never comes crashing down, either, even though disbelief must remain suspended for nearly two and a half hours. The rollercoaster ride known as The Da Vinci Code takes off from this absurd foundation.

Instead, I’m talking about nitty-gritty stuff like plot holes and illogical storytelling: What in God’s name (pun intended) was the old man doing in a darkened gallery in the Louvre in the middle of the night? Why did his killer let him live long enough to spread those bloody clues all over the place? And why didn’t the old man simply write down the identity of his killer (and those behind him), instead of coming up with anagrams that only someone possessing a Beautiful Mind like Tom Hanks’ symbologist Robert Langdon could decipher? (It’s not as if the conspirators would be willing to reveal The Secret to the police or to the French FBI, since the bad guys’ sole purpose is to keep The Secret secret.) These are only theological stuffing used as an excuse to propel the narrative of a mindless thriller. Nope, I’m not referring to the mysteries surrounding the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Templar Knights, the Holy Grail as a symbolic representation of the Holy Vagina, or Jesus’ divinity or lack thereof. In any case, the dying old man is granted enough time to use his own blood to draw symbols and anagrams on his body, on the floor, and on the wall nearby. I could swear I saw the old man get shot in the head, but despite the killer’s Dirty Harry-esque determination, his aim clearly left a lot to be desired.

For his uncooperativeness, he gets a bullet in the stomach. Another man – the evil twin of Rutger Hauer’s Blade Runner robot – shows up. An old man is walking alone in a darkened gallery in the Louvre.

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