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Da Vinci Code, Why dont people like it?

nOmArch

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Inspired by spotting DvC in a couple of peoples lists in the worst movie thread.

Note: i have only seen the extended edition.

ok, i get everyone getting sick and tired with all the is it for real hype and all that jabber and i can understand if people didnt like the book but what isnt to like about the movie?

ok Tom Hanks was not my first choice for Rob Langdon although i think he did a great job and Sophie Marceau could of been better but other than that is pretty much spot on to the book.

the book is no classic by any means and after my third read i found the story to be simply average (although the first time you read it it is fantastically entertaining) and i find i am way more drawn to the movie which i can still watch quite happily without getting bored.

so, my question, why didnt you like and why?
 

voodl

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paper characters, black and white story.
 

voodl

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story is build on "bad" and "good"......star wars is much more multidimensional that da vinci code......characters dont make any choices....there is no dubts, no questions. .... in short.



Ps. I wish I knew english much better!
 

Gaith

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Only saw it once in theaters, but I loved it, in large part because I took it as a high satire of organized religion. I don't know if this is how it was intended by Brown or anyone else (though McKellen certainly saw it this way), but I interpreted the whole story as mocking canonized superstition, with fictional character fretting over fictional twists to fictionalized historical events.
 

lewis886

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to me... the main problem with the film was that it had no flow. it didn't really take you on an interesting emotional or dramatic journey.... the film starts out on a certain tension/dramatic level and stays there the entire rest of the film. it didn't really have any building to it at all. no building, no climax, no resolution... nothing like that, for me. i thought it was acted fine, and the sets and story were fine.... but the movie just didn't flow... i don't know if it was more of a directing problem or an editing problem (or both)... but that was my main problem with it. i didn't hate it, by any means,.... but it certainly wasn't as good as it could have been. just didn't have proper pacing.

i've often wondered if someone could do a fanedit of that movie and give it some dramatic flow... some pacing... some buildup... i don't know... but i'd take my hat off to anyone who could.
 

nOmArch

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interesting points guys, i never really thought about the pacing before but it does stay pretty flat and sorta stays in third gear from then on. but i think thats more the fault of the book than the director or scriptwriters, the end of every chapter (sometimes even every page) ends with a cliffhanger which makes you want to read on when transformed into film i think that gets lost and, as you said lewis, ends up feeling rather flat.

courious way of looking at it gaith, and i think i can see what you mean in fact im gonna have to watch it again with that in mind as im sure i'll have a few laughs :)

thanks for elaborating voodl although i think the paper characters issue is another book device that didnt transfer over to the film. when i was reading the book, i did it very quickly like a lot of people and coupled with the pacing dan brown set i dont think it allows much time for character development as they're too busy getting on with trying to track the grail down instead of exploring their own and each others motivation.

did any of you guys see the movie fresh? ie not reading the book and researching the subject matter much? reason i ask is as i stated in my first post the first time i read it i thought it was one of the the best books i'd read in a long time but after reading it quite a few more times and seeing the extended edition a bunch of times it find it mearly average.

unlike say something like hitch hikers or Dune which blows my mind each time i read them or to put it another way, true classics.
 

Ghostcut

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The book didn't interest me at all, and as such I have no real desire to see the film.
 

FatherMerrin

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nOmArch said:
did any of you guys see the movie fresh? ie not reading the book and researching the subject matter much?

I did. Being my typical reactionary self I went out of my way to avoid anything about the book cause everyone was going on about it. So when I saw the film (before I read the book) I came to it fresh. Basically I thought it was a very flat film. What I couldn't get was the main characters strolling around a gallery calm as you like whilst being chased by the police & once it left the gallery it never picked up the pace. It got a wee bit better when McKellen entered the film but even he couldn't save it.

The Demons & Angels looks like it may be more fun.

Wait that's it.

The Da Vinci Code was no fun.
 

nOmArch

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think i'll stick with the theatrical version then as i got on with that one quite well.

Demons & Angels was ten times better than DvC, hopefully they'll do a better job.
 

Mollo

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I did not read the book. Sometime before I had read a very interesting book called The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. The three authors claimed Dan Brown plagiarized their work. There was a case brought against Dan Brown, which he won because the Judge deemed his book as fiction based on "fact" and fact cannot be owned by anyone. A bitter blow for the 3 authors after 10 years of labour on The Holy Blood. You can find out more using the link.

http://www.slate.com/id/2137797/

I am not a fan of Ron Howard. In fact he is my least favorite director, even more so than Michael Bay, so yes I suppose I saw the movie with a jaded perspective.

First I could not understand how someone could kill themselves while leaving so many messages and symbols in their own blood. Seemed silly. Then the escape from the Louvre, one of the most secure buildings in the world was ridiculous. By the time of the code words at the gate and Ian McKellen's hammy acting I just had to switch it off.

I spoke with a few people about it afterwards and not one said it was as good as the book. My view is that the producers or studio simply traded on the name of the book and made very little effort to create what could have been a exciting and memorable picture.

In my eyes, the film is infamous for duping the audience and the book is also infamous for making millions on others ideas and hard work.
 

nOmArch

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i watched most of the docu's about the alledged 'truth' in DvC (which were all kinda pointless since it was fiction) and thought that whole angle was pretty hilarious as it was a storm in a tea cup. i think i read Holy Blood, Holy Grail about ten years ago so the whole Grail 'Twist' was well known to me well before DB started writing about it.

i actually think the court case was also just PR really as most sensible people could infer what the outcome was gonna be, which a couple of the talking heads mentioned (so i cant claim that the PR thing was an idea i came to all by myself)

i still think DB was doing a sort of homage to HBHG instead of a hack job since he used an anagram of one of the authors names for Teabings character so he was definitely tipping his hat towards the original (for want of a better description) researchers and acknowledging their work. (imho etc.)

i completely agree that the book was better than the movie but then there are only a very few instances where that is not the rule anyway, and probably why i gave the movie a bit more leeway as i wasnt expecting it to be anywhere near as good as it was in print.

re: ron howard i cant say im a fan of all his movies but i thought Apollo 13 was pretty good but anyway he could certainly take a few lessons from better directors. still, im gonna keep my fingers crossed for D&A as it was a much better book and hopefully ron has learned a bit from the DvC but im not gonna be holding my breath.
 

FatherMerrin

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The premise of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was based on a hoax. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln were told of this before the book was released but they ignored the information cause they knew they'd make a load of money. So I have no problem with Brown making a cheap buck from them cause that's the only reason why THB&HG was released. The sad thing is over the years I think Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln have come to believe their own fibs. I think it's a case of wanting to believe so badly they've permantently suspended reality & reason.

When I did finally get round to reading the book I didn't think too much of it & I actually think D&A was a more enjoyable read & I think the structure of it will lend itself better to a film.
 

T-HOPE

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lewis886 said:
to me... the main problem with the film was that it had no flow. it didn't really take you on an interesting emotional or dramatic journey.... the film starts out on a certain tension/dramatic level and stays there the entire rest of the film. it didn't really have any building to it at all. no building, no climax, no resolution... nothing like that, for me. i thought it was acted fine, and the sets and story were fine.... but the movie just didn't flow... i don't know if it was more of a directing problem or an editing problem (or both)... but that was my main problem with it. i didn't hate it, by any means,.... but it certainly wasn't as good as it could have been. just didn't have proper pacing.
I agree. I don't dislike this movie, but I don't like it either. I think it's just very average, with all the points I have cited here above.
 

Mollo

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I agree that Dan Brown has every right to profit from his book, which he did. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln is an interesting read especially the sections concerning the altering of the bible. I would not say their book is a "hoax" far from it, some of the research is good. Some of their theories are baseless but that is only a small part of the over-all study, which is wide in scope and they do admit that they are theories.

As for the movie, I think one of it's many problems is that it did not make anything near the impact of the book, even with an incredible studio publicity blitzkierg.
 

FatherMerrin

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I didn't mean THB&THG is a hoax, but the research they based the book on was & they knew it.

Pierre Plantard who was the co-author of the information the THB&THG was based on immediantly distanced himself from the from the book when it was released & Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède (the other co-author) said after woulds that his father and Plantard had made up the Priory of Sion, and described the story as "piffle".

Oddly enough I actually prefer Dan Brown's use of this "piffle" because turning fiction into fiction is harmless. Where as Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln actually try to pass this "piffle" of as actual history. I mean theories are one thing, but to knowing base one's theories on false information is just wrong.
 

Gaith

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See, this discussion illustrates why I found the movie so entertaining. Actual Vatican priests who believe in things invented long ago got all huffy about stuff invented recently. Don't they know that only the old inventions are true!

Ian McKellen: "I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying 'This is fiction.' I mean, walking on water? It takes. . . an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie—not that it's true, not that it's factual, but that it's a jolly good story."

Ambrose Bierce: MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

As I said, high satire. :)
 

FatherMerrin

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Exactly.

From my POV most of the main religions have started with a small seed of truth, ie Jesus did exist but he was more like Ghandi than the Son of God. These elements of truth are then built apon over centuries with myths, hokum, lies & half truths. It's just that after 2 thousand years of it being ingrained into mainstream culture & most people being taught it from a young age that they don't think to question it.

But, like I said there are some historical elements to some religions which are perfectly true. But, these are few & far between & where there are gaps in the historical records the last thing you need are pseudo historians dressing up poorly researched flights of fancy as history.
 

lewis886

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well... i went in to the movie pretty fresh (other than being a little sick of the media blitzkrieg surrounding the book & movie),... i hadn't read the book... hadn't researched anything... was just interested if it is a good movie or not.... i like some of ron howard's films (apollo 13, beautiful mind, cinderella man), but he also sucks sometimes (grinch). so i didn't really know which way it would go... but i was expecting it to at least be reasonably well directed and be entertaining... the movie was produced fairly well, in terms of how it looked, how it was acted, etc... but the directing, screenwriting, and editing just weren't up to par as far as the pacing of the film was concerned.... maybe the tried to stay too close to the book... i have no idea... but something really should have been done... because it was just flat... i still would be impressed if someone took the extended edition and cut down a much shorter film that flows well... looks like the extended edition is almost 3 hours long... maybe someone could make a decent 2 hour thriller.... or even an hour and a half.... just give it some pacing, for pete's sake!!! lol
 
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