Very rarely will I go see a movie for full price. It's just...WRONG! Both financially and morally, it gives me pause to pay someone my hard-earned money for the privilege of sitting in THEIR seats to watch a movie. However, I do recognize that there are quite a few movies where part of the film is the experience of seeing it in the surround sound, coming at you off the screen, or where I feel it would enhance the movie to see it in a darkened theater to set the ambiance by forcing me to take two hours out of my busy life to focus on something.
The DaVinci Code was one of my rare exceptions. I read the book a few years back and loved it. I've been waiting on the movie to come out sice before the casting was complete, and I knew I would go see it as soon as I could. Opening weekend, I was dancing my tootsies off, getting some great lindyleads and awesome blues moments in there, but no moments for moviegoing. So last night, I decided to mix up my hockey karma and go see a movie instead of going to a sports bar.
In short, I can sum it up in three words - too damn long! - but it was well done and I feel like it deserves a little more explanation. The DaVinci Code has been an anomaly in my opinion: a work of fiction that makes you think that still manages to grab the attention of a nation where thought is too often discarded. A novel that truly is novel. A book embraced by the faithful and the secular alike, for different reasons but to the same end. The creation of a shared culture in a time when culture is splintering into microcosms.
It proved to be an anomaly on the big screen as well. Most of the time, the book is better than the movie because the adaptation leaves out what the reader would find to be key points or gets details wrong, or excises entire chunks of story in order to stay within the time allotted by Hollywood. The DaVinci Code is better as a book for all the opposite reasons. It stays very true to the story line. In fact, nothing is cut out because so much is necessary for that story to make sense and have the impact. That makes the movie drag at times. It's quite thought provoking...but at times plods along. I applaud the visuals in the movie - a nice bit of foreshadowing in technique with the power point presentation behind Langdon at the very beginning. Ron Howard did well illustrating memory and history and keeping you in the moment at the same time. However, it just didn't translate as well onto the big screen. I didn't feel the urgency of the chase that was there in the book. I've often called Dan Brown an author for the MTV Generation - writing appealing pieces that also cater to the shorter attention spans of today's multitaskers. Believe it or not, I felt it slowed down on the big screen.
Final opinion: Glad I saw it, not likely to buy the DVD, VERY glad we won or I'd be upset I wasted the time and money and didn't get out of the theater until 1 am!
What did you think?
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4 comments:
So, its not only grad students who watch the $1 theatre regularly! I go full price a bit too often for my own pocket, I guess ;-)
I liked the movie. Mainly because I had read the book like a year back and I have goldfish memory as far as non-technical things go. Sometimes I did feel as though the movie ran out of breath trying to catch up with the book, but nonetheless, it was visually appealing. Its the imagery that kept it going, I guess.
It was definitely worth the 8 bucks!
It was too long... But that seems to be the thing latly. All I got to say is...
"Yeah, Uh Mr. Ron Howard...why in God's name would you allow Tom Hank's hair to look like that?"
I haven't read the book yet, but what I'm hearing is that it is better then the film.
Read the book about 6-8 months ago. Liked it okay. I was disappointed that it wasn't really unravelling a riddle that DaVinci had devised, but rather one that used DaVinci as a starting point and an example. I like Ron Howard/Tom Hanks flicks, so Imight go see this on one of my travels (Mrs. Farrago has no interest in seeing it, but told me that if I go to see a movie around home, it better be with her and a movie she wants to see).
Did you read "Angels and Demons?" I really enjoyed it right up to the point where they go chasing the priest into the catacombs beneath St. Peter's basilica - BBC News crew in tow - and the camera was able to beam the whole event - 60 feet below ground - to the world. Who uncoiled the kilometer of cable? Oh? Was it a microwave feed? Through SIXTY FEET of EARTH? It made reading the rest of the book really difficult for me.
I enjoyed the movie and thought it both funny and scary how much of the book I forgot. I liked the actress who played Sophie. What eyes!
Wasn't the grandfather really her grandfather in the book?
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