classicsoncall Review of The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

"We've been dragged into a world of people who think this stuff is real!"

[9/10 · 16 June 2019]

If you heed the advice given by symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) mentioned in my summary line above, you should be OK. If you don't, you could get caught up in all kinds of conspiracy theories regarding what happened following the Last Supper and the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Some historians believe the chalice used by Jesus at The Last Supper to be the Holy Grail of Christianity, and I thought this was where the story was going. A cup is mentioned at one point but then it veered off in a different direction. The secret so many people were apparently willing to die for was to preserve the legacy of the human descendants of Christ on Earth, which could only have occurred if Jesus himself had a wife and family and the lineage survived up until the present day. The way the story relates this possibility is intriguing enough, but does tend to confuse with mentions of such occult entities as Opus Dei, the Priory of Sion, and the Knights Templar. The expert on all this was an enigmatic figure referred to as The Teacher, ultimately revealed to be Sir Leigh Teabing, portrayed by the always excellent Ian McKellen. The actor to watch in this piece is Paul Bettany, who's character Silas engages in self mutilation as a devotee of Christ; he's a truly chilling and scary character. There's probably not much middle ground for viewers of this picture, you'll like it or hate it based on the reviews posted here. Once it got under way, I approached it as a mystery thriller with religious overtones and didn't get caught up in the conspiracy angles. It holds a lot more intrigue that way.