the Da Vinci Code

Saw the DA VINCI CODE. Now I can tell people I read the book.

No wonder it’s a big hit. Who needs action and suspense when you can have two hours of exposition? And at the end of the day it’s still confusing.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE THREE PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW THE STORY AND STILL CARE TO:

Audrey Tautou is supposedly the last direct heir to Jesus Christ (and don’t you wish if this theory were true the last direct heir would really be Kellie Pickler???). So what was the secret society intending to do if they found her? Kill her? Force her to mate with Billy Graham? Bow down to her? Get her to host the 700 Club?

Audrey, by the way, looked scrumptious. She couldn’t be on the run from the “evildoers” in a thong? If nothing else it would’ve given Paul Bettany a reason to whip himself.

When you can replace the hero (Tom Hanks) with an audio-tour headset you haven’t serviced the lead character very well.

Since this was a movie about questioning faith, it would have been nice if the protagonists found themselves in a situation where their faith was challenged. Even once.

Plus, how much suspense can there be when Indiana Jones has already found the Holy Grail? And it was a cooler one, too. Nazis melt. This one sits under a gift shop.

Is there a French law that you can’t film a movie in Paris without casting Jean Reno?

There’s absolutely no surprise that Ian MacKellen turns out to be the villain. If he were playing Gandhi I’d be saying, “Watch out! He’s got a gun under that robe!”

Towards the end of the movie my mind drifted back to Paul Bettany’s self-flagellation scene and I thought, “Now I know how he felt.”

But regardless of what critics have said (those Godless heathens!) the DA VINCI CODE is such a runaway smash that the producers are rushing a prequel into production. In that movie Tom Hanks will uncover evidence that Audrey Tautou is also the daughter of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, thus entitling her to 1/58th of his estate to be divided by all his children.