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first of all, i understand that yes, the moviemakers have a lot of shit to cram into 2.5 hours. i also understand that adaptation from a book is never easy. i also know that they are gonna be releasing an extremely anticipated, and a heavily debated against, and a DANGEROUSLY CONTROVERSIAL movie to the vicious masses, so they have to tread very carefully.

but omg. why did they have to kill the movie the way they did?!?!?

okay let me tell you where this movie went so wrong.

in comparison to the book - assuming you have read it - they took out a lot of the plot. A LOT. like you know how the cryptex was actually a 2 in 1, the first code being SOFIA, and the second being APPLE? well it’s only got one code in the movie - which is APPLE. that was probably done to save time, but STILL. the part in the book where they discovered the first code was so jawdroppingly unbelievable!!! not to mention how the fact that there was a 2nd code behind the 1st really highlighted the extremely crucial role of the cryptex. in the movie, the cryptex was like -

‘oh this old thing?’

besides complete plot blackholes, some parts got drastically altered to save time or to keep the movie flowing. unfortunately, for people who have read the book, we know that this isnt to the moviewatcher’s benefit at all. cos by snipping the plot here and there and then tying up random bits together, it made the movie so choppy and so lame and so stupid and so banal and so .. omg give me my money back.

like for instance. you know the completely serendipitious moment when Langdon figured out the APPLE code by glancing out the window and seeing the apple blossom tree?! not there anymore! the movie made it look as if he JUST SUDDENLY got the answer in 2 seconds.

okay maybe that was a bit forgivable. but not this one. you know how Sophie and her brother were never actually in the car crash, and her brother was whisked away while she was sent to Sauniere? yeah well, the movie says that her brother and parents DID die, Sophie managed to survive the crash, and that Sauniere wasnt even her real grandfather. wtf, right? the book was so touching because of how much Sauniere loved his granddaughter. it gave it a special kind of warmth, and made his death so much more powerful and poignant. but yeah, the movie just had to kill that.

so in the end, no, there is no great sad teary reconciliation between Sophie and Brother, because Brother has died. gee, thanks. however, Grandmother was there, but the scene was so poorly done. not intimate at all, and just made me want to laugh out loud at the lame incredulity in which it was presented.

oh, did i mention that in the movie, young Sophie was sent away to boarding school?

and that she discovered the sex ritual when she came home early from boarding school?

…………

hahahahahhaa.

i dont even know why they had to include the boarding school bit. so lame, so lame, so lame. and the reason why there was a falling out between her and Sauniere, was not because of the ritual she witnessed (which by the way, was done in the living room instead of the grandiosity of a secret basement), but because she was found prying in her grandfather’s study for information on her parents’ death. yah.

some plot changes are forgivable because they are insignificant, but some are not. i am still sore about them taking out so many important scenes.

also, many scenes would have been delivered with a bigger POW! if they had just stuck to the way the book did it. for instance, the scene where Silas finds the stone that says Job 38:11? in the book he looked up the verse in Saint Sulpice’s bible, and it would have been SO. DAMN. GEMPAK if they had did that instead. can you just SEE how exciting it could have been - a nervous and shivering Silas excitedly flipping through the bible to find Job 38:11, locating the verse, then following it with a shaking finger, with the camera then slowly revealing the words -

‘Hitherto thou shalt come, but no further.’

i mean, wow. how acutely powerful is that??? and how well does that highlight the brilliance of Dan Brown’s mind??? but. no. moviemakers decided to have a threatened nun recite the line so fast that the prospect of her death overshadowed the genius of the verse.

some may say that it’s unfair to compare the movie to the book. so, okay, i wont. here’s how i thought it fared on its own.

like the Job 38:11 scene, many other scenes could have been executed much better. Silas’ self-mutilation with his cilice belt and whip looked like something that was just included to add a bit of gore factor to the movie. if only they had put in a bit of a soliloquy before he did it, like asking God to forgive him for commiting murder, then his self-punishment would have made more sense to the audience.

some other poorly executed scenes were the ones at the Louvre, where the audience is introduced to the O Draconian Devil and Oh Lame Saint anagrams. oh man. the way they skipped through those crucial moments made me want to scream!!! they almost dismissed the codes, and made them seem so kindergarten. even the brilliance of the double entendre Fibonnaci sequence was downplayed. and the Madonna on the Rocks code?! solved in 3 seconds. arghghghgh. to someone who hasnt read the book prior to watching the movie, the codes looked almost secondary and useless and .. sophomoric. the DVC has been robbed of its magic, robbed!!!

the movie even started out wrong. how many people thought that the scene where the police officer came to retrieve Langdon at his book signing was badly done and did not convey the extreme importance of Sauniere’s death?!

i also have major beef with the cinematography. it so sucked. i have never seen a big-budget movie with cinematography as pathetic as this one. look, Leigh Teabing is supposed to be a damn rich dude right? when we are introduced to him, a huge sweeping long shot of his magnificent study and his mansion would have been nice and impressive, to establish just how affluent this guy is. however, for some weird reason, the moviemakers scrimped and introduced Leigh Teabing in a small and very ungrand living room with too much furniture and a homey-looking kitchen. this pissed me off so much. also when we were shown the codes in the Louvre, why couldnt they have panned out and shown the whole code in its entirety, then let the camera linger there for a bit?! they just kept showing us small flashes of part of the code, and it was so freaking annoying, and made it difficult to see or even comprehend what the hell the code was.

the only scenes that were done well were the action scenes - like the cop car scenes, and the one when Sophie and Langdon were escaping in her Smartcar. besides that, nada.

as for pace .. it moved too quickly and didnt provide ample explanation for many things. this is forgivable, i guess, seeing as how they have so much to stuff into 2 and a half hours, and how they probably assumed that the whole world read the book. but to people who have NOT read the book, they will be so at sea. understandably so. the movie is total information-overload in too short a span of time.

oh and here is my biggest complaint of all.

they turned Robert Langdon into a whinger.

why?

to placate the christian viewers.

how?

you know the part in Teabing’s study when he and Langdon both explain to Sophie about Christianity? you know how in the book they both just EXPLAIN everything, from the divinity of Christ being a result of a vote, to how Christianity is basically lifted off pagan rituals, to how Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail, blablabla? yes, well, in the movie, only Teabing does it. and Langdon actually - get this - ARGUES with him. Langdon says there is no proof of such allegations, and that it’s not true. and then when Teabing brings up the Council of Nicaea and how they were the ones who decided that Jesus the mortal should be made ‘Son of God’ to recruit more followers, Langdon launches into a passionate speech on how they were just making official an already widely-accepted belief that Jesus is Son of God.

OH MY FISH.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT.

and at the end, there is this cringeworthy scene where Langdon tells Sophie how when he fell into a well when he was younger (as detailed further in Angels and Demons), he prayed to God, and at that instant he suddenly felt that he was no longer alone.

i mean. come on. i’m christian and i love God. but. that. scene. was. just. so. argh.

oh oh oh and how about that ridiculous introduction of this new mystery clandestine body called ‘The Council of Shadows’ who took the blame for ALL controversial bits in the plot instead of the Catholic church?!?! this was by far the most ridiculous part of the whole movie, and such a lame way to escape angry audience backlash. i mean, come on. ‘Council of Shadows’??? *rollseyes*

damn scriptwriter. we know what you’re trying to do!!!

what else. oh. i also think they could have given a lot more dimension to their characters. the Teacher seemed almost insignificant, and when Remy the butler was suddenly shown as the villian, the twist was so pathetic it was almost laughable. and i dont think the audience could even connect well enough to Sophie to buy the fact that she is a descendant of Christ. oddly, Silas was given the most depth. not even Robert Langdon was spared the horrific character butchering.

the only thing about the movie that really impressed me was the dialogue between Sophie and Langdon at the end. he asks her what she would do now with the knowledge of the existence of Christ’s bloodline - destroy the belief or renew it? it’s a powerful and analogical question that can be related back to the existence of the DVC book itself. i also really liked Ian McKellen’s acting. he is the perfect Leigh Teabing, and completely overshadowed all other actors in this movie.

siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

all in all, disappointing. a 1/5 with the 1 going to Ian McKellen and the moviemaker’s ability to rush everything like greased lightning, yet provide some semblance of continuity albeit not much.

bottom line : The Da Vinci Code was robbed of its magic. there is no ingenuity in this film at all.

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