Reel To Reel: The DaVinci Code

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Gunplay, Mild Violence, Mild Language, Male Nudity, Intense Depiction Of Self-Injurious Religious Behavior

When I took Classical Mythology in college the syllabus contained a warning: some of what you are about to read may challenge what you learned in the Bible. Some of it did, but my faith held anyway.

I have not read Dan Brown's novel. Before I saw The DaVinci Code, I was warned again: this is fiction. I know it's fiction. The Catholic Church and many protestant clergy are making considerable effort to remind you of that, lest you buy too extravagantly into the movie's shadowy world of Catholic conspiracies, cover-ups and criminal acts. Now what would ever give people the notion the church is hiding something? Three words: Cardinal Bernard Law.

You probably know the plot basics. Symbologist professor Robert Langdon (Hanks) stumbles into a religious mystery after a murder of a freind in Paris' Louvre. The murder victim managed to leave behind a cryptic series of clues after taking a bullet, making this one of the longest drawn-out death sequences we've never seen. The clues lead Langon into a centuries-old society protecting a secret threatening the very tenets of Christianity and a radical fringe group of Catholics trying to keep that secret hidden.

DaVinci is an action film where most of the action takes place inside your head -- more Powerpoint than gunpoint. It requires considerable attention and focus, for it tosses a lot of historical allegations your way. Director Ron Howard borrows a techinque he created in A Beautiful Mind, using CGI and flashbacks to guide us through codes and ancient history. Some of you will still get lost in the shuffling of past and present. At the showing I attended, I heard one person say to a friend, "You wanted to see this movie so bad, and you slept through it!"

Some people will complain this film lags. Yes, it does. That's a side effect of trying to translate a book so cerebral into a popcorn blockbuster. We demand, like with the Harry Potter series, a religious adherence to the source material -- excuse the pun. Yet when such translations fail to engage us in a visual medium with THX stereo, the failure is placed on the filmmakers, not on the material. True, the screenwriters have something to do with it, but some book movies are better as books and DaVinci is one of them.

I don't believe the conspiracies. But the film succeeds in making you think about your beliefs. The Catholic Church is understandably nervous about that. Hanks' character, however, also talks about faith in a key scene late in the picture. Without giving any plot secrets away, the point is the world is a better place with Christianity than without it. The teachings of Jesus Christ have touched countless lives, including mine. While we can debate the foundations of the Church into the next century, we cannot deny Christianity is a movement that will survive rumors, schisms, secrets, antipopes, heretics, and yes, sex scandals. The need to hide anything seems pointless.