Da Vinci Code

Plate, fade, visuellement peu attractif. Et pour moi, en tant qu'athée, cela ne suscite aucun intérêt. Les acteurs, à l'exception de Ian McKellen, ne sont pas expressifs, seule la musique sombre de Hans Zimmer se distingue. Je n'ai pas lu le livre original et maintenant je ne le lirai certainement pas. Un film typiquement hollywoodien, vendu de manière brillante sur le plan marketing. (11/06/2006)

Il y a dix ans, je me disais intuitivement que l’embrasement mondial suscité par Da Vinci Code était surfait et que je ne perdais pas grand-chose à ne pas le voir, que je pourrais toujours le regarder ou le lire plus tard. Et c’est chose faite en 2016. Mais j’ai dû le regarder en deux fois et en m’assoupissant à deux reprises, gagné par un terrible ennui qui ne m’a pas lâché sur les deux heures du métrage et dégoûté par la surenchère narrative. Je reconnais que le livre est potentiellement plus captivant, plus précis et plus percutant et que les Américains, comme ils l’ont déjà fait des milliers de fois par le passé, auront complètement bousillé le modèle littéraire. Mais ça, je ne pourrai pas le vérifier, parce que rien au monde ne pourra me convaincre de m’emparer de ce livre – une quantité de titres plus tentants m’attend dans ma bibliothèque. (17/08/2016)

Howard is innocent here. The plot, which is primarily about talking and talking, probably couldn't be filmed better. Even the actors do a solid job considering what the script allowed them to do (both Hanks and Tautou were fine, not to mention McKellen). And those two and a half hours did go by pretty quickly. Why 2* then? The problem is the rambling source material and, logically, the script. Brown confuses apples with pears, history with myths, creates conspiracy theories as a skillful manipulator, which are nice to listen to (and read), but at their core they are pulled from the proverbial ass and are closer to stupidity rather than controversy (but what can you expect from a man who confuses bits with bytes in his “Digital Fortress”, right?). How am I supposed to enjoy such a film when what it presents - from the premise to the unbelievable characters - is one big pile of nonsense? At the end, when the twist is revealed, I was just waiting for Monty Python to show up and sing a song. I can understand the big sales, a hearty media and advertising campaign can do wonders ("Film of the Century!" etc.), but I wonder, did this "poor man’s Daniken" really sell 60 million copies? Well, to each their own, but everyone gets what they deserve, of course. (27/05/2006)

Writer Dan Brown is definitely not going to become the new Umberto Eco, yet his book is quite readable. Unfortunately, the film version is rather unfortunate, given the literal adherence not only to individual scenes but often to the lines themselves, which somehow lose their meaning and logic without further explanation. This then becomes a continuous sequence of dialogues, from which the most fervent conspiracy theories, which so annoy the bigwigs in the Vatican, are suppressed into the background. Still, hats off to Ron Howard for making it flow relatively well despite the exorbitant runtime. If it wasn't for the awkward car chase that steals from The Bourne Identity and the rather clumsily filmed flashbacks, the film would have been more than decent because the scene where Langdon contemplates the cipher and the memory of Issac Newton's monument forms in front of him is amazing, as is the final kneeling. Tom Hanks is not suitable for the main role at all (the wannabe youthful look does not suit this actor), while on the other hand, Paul Bettany is excellent as the albino, including his precisely chosen accent. It’s a thriller worth a single watch, and if it hadn't had the heavy advertising, the copies in the video stores would have been covered in dust after a few months. (24/06/2006)

Like the book, the picture is rather “naive" and rather than quality, we get solid craftsmanship instead. Thanks to the flatness of the characters, the actors have very little acting to do, which is highlighted by it being rather garrulous and so the entire movie relies on vocal performances. Although this could easily be cut down a good few minutes, in the end it is watchable without great damage to your health. But the only actually positive side of the whole Code is Zimmer’s soundtrack, which makes even the most boring dialog scene seem as if it is something fundamentally important for the story. The creators tended toward the secrecy storyline, which is therefore given the most space and so only a fraction of the movie is devoted to cracking the code and this becomes just a necessary evil with no power behind it, which is a great shame. OST score: 4/5 (30/05/2006)