The Da Vinci Code A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG-13 It's 2:28 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

"The Da Vinci Code" is the screen adaptation of the book of the same name that you would think, from the number of books sold, everyone in the world has read. Well, I didn’t, so I didn’t know exactly what the secret of the book was about, but thanks to every critic assuming everyone has read the book, by the time I went to see the movie I already knew the story. I suppose I might as well ruin the movie as well, at least sort of.

It seems there is a death at The Louvre (that’s a famous art museum in Paris, for those of you who really live under a rock). But it’s not a normal death, nope; this dude was shot and then somehow was able to leave all kinds of clues all over the museum giving some hint as to the secret of his killer. Enter Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). He’s a dude who studies symbols and their various meanings, and it seems our dead dude had all kinds of symbols associated with him. So he’s at The Louvre checking out the dead body, with Captain Fache (Jean Reno), and enters Sophie (Audrey Tautou). She warns Robert he is in danger, grave danger in fact (and in the famous words of Col. Jessep, "Is there any other kind?"), that he can’t trust the good Captain, and now the race is on to figure out the clues, only it seems the clues don’t really lead to the killer, but to a secret the Catholic Church has been hiding since the beginning of the Catholic Church. It seems that since the 300’s there has been a war going on within the church. On the one side are the normal church people we know and love, only they have been trying to eliminate the secret that has been covered up, thereby not having it ever be exposed and thereby not having to worry about the church as we know it being destroyed. On the other side are those that know the truth: That Jesus wasn’t really all that special, just a man with good ideas, and that he married Mary Magdalene and she had a kid after Jesus’ crucifixion. So, for the last 1700+ years church folks have been trying to eradicate both those who might be descendents of Jesus, as well as any clue that might suggest this, while the other folks have been working to protect the secret so that when the time was right, the secret would be revealed. Only Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) has his own plan – he’s tired of waiting for the truth to come out so he hatches a plan to speed up the process, and it involves some killings, some running, some chasing, and using his good buddy Robert to figure out the secret to finding the map to Mary’s tomb.

Alright, that might sound confusing, but who the hell cares? It’s a story from a fictional novel that way too many people are raising a huff about, although they didn’t seem to raise as much of a huff when the book was on the best seller list. Anyway, religion aside, this is a story about trying to find a treasure map, and that’s where the fun comes in. We start with some cryptic clues, and those lead to more cryptic clues, and we hope the good guys are able to find the treasure and save the day before the bad guys, and we can usually assume one of the seeming good guys is really a bad guy, win. All along our heroes learn things about themselves, and there might even be some lessons for us in the theater audience to ponder. In the end, that’s what "The Da Vinci Code" gives us, and yes, the good guys win.

I will admit that the movie is about ½ hour too long, but my butt didn’t get sore so I wasn’t thinking about it too much, it was just that some of the extended scenes lasted too long. Tom Hanks was great as Robert, and I really didn’t give a crap about his hair. Audrey Tautou is very beautiful, and it wasn’t really a surprise the ending they left her with, and Ian McKellen was great as the nutty history dude. Hell, for that matter, Paul Bettany was great as the misguided "Silas."

Look, if you want a movie that will entertain you a bit and can realize it’s a movie based on a fictional book, you will probably be okay seeing the movie. Also, if you sometimes question some things about your religion, you will still probably be okay with this movie. If you take every word of the Bible as fact, and can’t enjoy a story that contradicts any of that, you will probably hate "The Da Vinci Code." Me, I think most religions are full of secrets that the higher-ups think shouldn’t be exposed for whatever reason, I think this is also the case with most governments, and fictional stories like "The Da Vinci Code" are great when they exploit this. Me, I’m still hoping that someone will go and take over for that poor knight who has been protecting the cup Jesus drank out of (a different version of The Holy Grail than in "The Da Vinci Code"), and also wonder in what warehouse The Arc of the Covenant is stored. Now I’ve also got to worry that a certain lady finds a man so that the blood lineage of Jesus will continue on. Such are movies.

It’s 4 stars out of 5 for "The Da Vinci Code."

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!