Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1900 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-01-15
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 143 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Reviews
Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold, and The Da Vinci Code has clearly made the leap from pop-culture hit to a certifiable franchise (games and action figures are sure to follow). The leap for any story making the move from book to big screen, however, is always more perilous. In the case of The Da Vinci Code, the story is concocted of such a preposterous formula of elements that you wouldn't envy Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriter who was handed a potentially unfilmable book and asked to make a filmable script out of it. Goldsman's solution was to have the screenplay follow the book as closely as possible, with a few needed changes, including a better ending. The result is a film that actually makes slightly better entertainment than the book.

So if you're like most of the world, by now you've read the book and know that it starts out as a murder mystery. While lecturing in Paris, noted Harvard Professor of Symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summoned to the Louvre by French police help decipher a bizarre series of clues left at the scene of the murder of the chief curator, Jacques Sauniere. Enter Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), gifted cryptologist and Sauniere's granddaughter. Neveu and Langdon are forced to team up to solve the mystery, and from there the story is propelled across Europe as it balloons into a modern-day mini-quest for the Holy Grail, complete with alternative theories about the life of Christ, ancient secret societies headed by historical figures like Leonardo Da Vinci, secret codes, conniving bishops, daring escapes, car chases, and, of course, a murderous albino monk controlled by a secret master who calls himself "The Teacher."

Taken solely as a mystery thriller, the movie almost works--despite some gaping holes--mostly just because it keeps moving forward at the breakneck pace set in the book. Brown's greatest trick might have been to have the entire story take place in a day so that the action is forced to keep going, despite some necessary pauses for exposition. Hanks and Tautou are just fine together but not exactly a memorable screen pair; meanwhile, Sir Ian McKellen's scenery-chewing as pivotal character Sir Leigh Teabing is just what the film needs to keep it from taking itself too seriously. In the end, this hit movie is just like a good roller-coaster ride: try not to think too much about it--just sit back and enjoy the trip. --Daniel Vancini, Amazon.com

Synopsis
Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks, FORREST GUMP) and cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou, AMELIE) set out to uncover the truth about The Holy Grail, encountering a mysterious ancient society on the way. Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is on business in Paris when he is called to the Louvre, where a curator he was due to meet has been murdered. There he meets police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, the granddaughter of the murdered curator. A number of symbols and riddles have been found at the murder scene and the duo set about solving the complex mystery. However, Bezu Fache (Jean Reno, LEON)--the police officer in charge of the investigation--believes that Langdon is implicated in the killing. This leads to Langdon being chased by the French police as he attempts to solve the mystery by following secret clues found in the works of artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Langdon and Neveu escape to England to continue their search for clues in the mystery that has the possibility to upset the very foundations of Christianity, a search that brings them into conflict with Catholic organisation Opus Dei and their dangerous monk Silas (Paul Bettany, GANGSTER NO. 1). Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (I, ROBOT) manages to transform Dan Brown's tremendously successful novel into a thrilling and fast paced script that is expertly directed by Ron Howard (APOLLO 13). The film was the target of criticism by the Roman Catholic Church but this didn't stop THE DA VINCI CODE becoming a worldwide smash hit.

Customer Reviews

Rubbish compared to the book!
Ok first of all I read the book a week ago and absolutly loved every page of it and I seriously recomend it. This is the reason why i baught the film but I was very unimpressed.

My tip.... read the book!

Long live Teabing a.k.a. The Teacher!
Recently, no-longer-so-Red China prohibited the movie "The Da Vinci Code", after only two weeks of airing. Thank God. At least there is some Western trash the Chinese audience dont have to endure. Apparently, the movie have also been banned at the Faroe Islands (of all places). Once again: Thank you.

Although the movie slightly downplays the most controversial claims in Dan Browns novel, the basic message is still the same. All these ideas have been refuted by serious scholars (including secular ones) long ago. Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene and didnt sire children with her. Constantine didnt invent the Christian Bible. In fact, all or most of the New Testament (NT) was written 200 years earlier. Nor was Constantine the first to declare Jesus a God. His purported divinity is spelled out already in the NT, most clearly in the Gospel of John, written around AD 100. The Gnostic gospels, in which Mary Magdalene is portrayed as the chief disciple of Jesus, were written long after the NT Gospels. Besides, the Gnostics also regarded Jesus as divine! Et cetera.

Thus, the movie doesnt expose any cover-up. Rather, it and Dan Browns novel are themselves part of a cover-up. Brown wants to replace one religious myth (the Christian) with another (his own). Im not a Christian, but the Church is at least a public institution, with a public message. Dan Browns alternative is presumably a secret sex cult, carrying out bizarre rituals reminescent of Satanic ritual abuse, and led by a Grand Master with a penchant for pentagrams and other Satanist paraphernalia. In the movie, the members of this secret society, "the Priory of Zion", are depicted as the good guys. By contrast, "the Teacher", who wants to expose both the Church and the Priory, thereby ending ALL conspiracies for good, is one of the bad guys!!

In fact, I found Teabing or the Teacher to be the only sympathetic person in the entire movie, a sort of expose-em-all David Icke character (and I must admit that I dont usually like Icke).

Incidentally, who engineered the car accident that killed Sophies father and mother anyway?? The movie never says, but we are left with the impression that it might have been the Priory after all. Thus, the "good" guys.

So the muckracker is the bad guy, and the secret manipulative Satanic cult are not really Satanists at all, but jolly nice people. Oh yeah? So why do they operate in secret, then? Obviously, because they have something to hide, not only from "the council of shadows", but from the rest of us as well. It might be well to remember that many of the ideas in Dan Browns novel originally comes from Pierre Plantard, a French right-wing extremist. Besides, the conspiracy theory of history is usually associated with the far right of the political spectrum. These essentially elitist and fascist ideas have then been neatly edited into a vaguely "New Age" version and voila, we have "The Da Vinci Code".

Make no mistake about it. "The Da Vinci Code" might be a bad movie, but the ideas behind it are even worse. Not just for the odd traditional Christian, but for all of us. Sincerely, do you want a world ruled by the Priory of Zion? If forced to chose, I rather go with the most boring, philistine Anglican vicar!

Better than a sleeping pill!
More proof that a best selling book doesn't necessarily translate into a good film. I haven't read the book, and this ponderous, garbled, over-long and pretentious waste of time hasn't encouraged me to do so. Hanks looks bored, and there is no spark of chemistry between him and the female lead, Tautou. McKellen is incapable of giving a bad performance, and his scenes are among the best, which isn't saying much.

The plot, such as it is, includes two tired old staples - the lovable old eccentric character who turns out to be not so lovable at all, and the ambiguous use of personal pronouns to try and throw the audience off the track. Personally I suspected both of these "twists" very early on.

I don't care if the Mary Magdalene bloodline/grail story is fiction, and over used. I don't care if the film takes a knock at Christianity and the Catholic Church (they can take it) but I do care if it lacks character development, plot development and tension. And sends me to sleep. Which this one did.