Da Vinci Code -- decoded!

Disclaimer: Unknowingly there maybe some spoilers here.. If you have read the book or seen the movie, don't bother... If not, you can wait to read this one!

Ok.. here I am at last obliging the many requests to write a review about the most-anticipated movie of the year... Finally it was opening night on Friday and I was about to see the movie I'd waited for about an year.. I've never quite seen AMC this overflowing... we were a bunch of 8 and we couldnt find any seating together, however close to the screen.. And so we split up and sat where we could... Having heard the critics review at Cannes, I'd dipped my expectations of the movie to a rock-bottom and now all I wanted to do was enjoy the adaptation...

It began... At the outset, in the first 15 minutes of the movie, I can probably point out some 30 things that deviated from the book.. not trivial.. not major... but to the book's fan, a definite minus point, especially because one couldnt explain why Langdon would be a suspect to Fache if he was interrupted by Collet at the lecture around the time of the murder! Didn't make sense! Putting that behind you would be a smart idea and let you enjoy the rest of the movie..

For most part in the first half, things move real fast and as someone who'd read the book more than once, I didnt understand how people who hadnt read it would warm up to the pace in the movie... But I had more things to think about.. Tom Hanks is an awesome star, but looked a little bit too old even for Langdon's character who is about 40... And Audrey was a near-perfect fit for Sophie, who's also French... And it all gelled, except that as my roommate put it, the two stars were a bit too 'deadpan' in their expressions... But then, its no secret that both the book and the movie are all about the plot that unfolds and performances could be compromised for the events that were unravelling...

After Teabing (Ian McKellen - Gandalf in LOTR) came onscreen, no one else stood a chance.. The casting was sooo perfect and he was brilliant and totally stole the show.. It was captivating and the sequence that I got a little bored in the book (the Grail explanation to Sophie by Robert n Teabing) was shown far more interesting in the movie.. And the screenplay was good in particular... The way they decoded the 'Last Supper', the way they enlightened the blade n chalice.. And in general, the way the movie flashbacks abruptly in a newspaper print fashion was particularly brilliant...

The movie gained pace and before you knew it, they had the cryptex (which is pleasingly exactly what one would have imagined it to be -- no disappointments here). But they did eat away the dual cryptex concept and simplistically stuck to just one (The SOFIA thingie was ignored). As the plot thickened, what amazed me the most was the exact locations that the movie was shot at... Here credit is due to Dan Brown himself for having made lucid descriptions of all those churches and otherwise as they unfolded in 'flesh n blood' in the movie and were exactly as I had imagined... They were breathtaking...

Another amazing facet of the movie was the 'makeup'. Silas' bloodied back and punctured thigh (from the cilice) couldnt have been more perfect if he'd really punctured it! Bloody, yet brilliant! And the sudden attacks that he made was terriffic shock elements that startled almost everyone... You knew it was coming.. yet not the way it did! At this juncture I must mention that some facts felt twisted --
1) The connection between Fache n Aringarosa was revealed too early
2) Aringarosa was shown a bad guy
3) They overstretched the well-shaft incident for Langdon bringing in some Christ belief, etc...

After the 'APPLE' cryptex got open, someone like me would remember the book ending in a few chapters and 20 pages at the most. The movie however dragged one full half hour after that... I couldnt take it at that point.. It felt like it went on forever... There were some unnecessary scenes of Langdon enlightening Sophie at a basement library (which isnt there in the book)..

Here I must mention that the last scene, where Langdon realises where the sacrophagus of Mary Magdalene is, is one of the best shot scenes in any movie.. The way the camera takes you right to the bottom of the 2 pyramids of Louvre is absolutely breathtaking and leaves a feel-good feeling from the movie..

All in all, its surely not one of those movies that leaves you complaining every 5 seconds that it didnt match the book (well the story line didnt - here n there, but they pretty much stuck to most of the facts), the locations make the movie worth a watch and.. I am surely visiting the Louvre sometime in the future. :-)