I’m not usually one for seeing movies on opening night, however tonight my roommate organized a little group to go see “The DaVinci Code” at our local neighborhood theatre so I went along.

I read the book around 3 or 4 years ago soon after it first came out.  It still stands out in my mind as one of the the best novels I’ve read in the last 5 years.  The book is very well written, leaving you in cliff-hanger suspense from chapter to chapter. Intrigue, murder, mysterious codes, history, travel, it’s all there, and Dan Brown does an excellent job weaving it all into one heck of a page turner.

Before I saw the movie tonight I had read a few reviews and it didn’t look good.  Apparently the press doesn’t like this movie version at all, so I went in not expecting much.  I am delighted to say the movie was excellent.  Was there a lot of information crammed into the film?  Sure there was, but if you remember the novel, it flows the same way, with mystery after mystery being solved just in the nick of time.  

The movie was very true to the book in plot, setting, and rhythm.   I thought the casting was great; Tom Hanks did a superb job as Robert Langdon, as did Audrey Tautou, playing the part of sidekick Sophie Neveu.  Ian McKellen playing Sir Leigh Teabing definitely stole the show midway through the film, and bad cop/good cop Captain Fache played by Jean Reno did an excellent job that was very true to the novel.

The movie was very true to the book; it flowed very well, in a few places they had to take some liberties (such as the guy with the cell phone/web-library on the bus) but it was minor, and didn’t take away from the film at all.

The story is an intriguing one, and if you haven’t read the book I’m not going to ruin it for you. I will say that Dan Brown really did his research on this one, and while it is fiction, it does make you think “what if”.   For anyone to be upset about this movie, Catholic or otherwise, is just plain silly.  It speaks volumes about a persons fear and absolutist mentality if they refuse to be exposed to new ideas or a really well written story, and the DaVinci Code is just that, a very well written story that has now been turned into an excellent movie.

I came away from the movie with the same emotions I had after reading the book. History is written by the victors, and when you go back and see how events over time flow from A to B, to C, to D, and so on, it can be a real eye opener.  The DaVinci code is fiction, yet it exposes how fragile the threads of History are, and how if one little event were changed here or there, the entire world of today might be radically different than the one we have.   So I understand why some people find this movie a threat.

The DaVinci Code is a great movie, and I would highly recommend this movie to anyone, regardless of their theology.  If you like puzzles, mystery, history and intrigue, you will love this movie, go see it and tell me what you think.

- Porter