Truly Da Vinci - complicated, confusing, so dark the con of man

And for those of you who thought that The Da Vinci Code was going to turn out to be just as brilliant as the book, you can very much think again.

Spoilers ahead, for the other half of the world who are quite lagging behind (better start reading Dan Brown soon, guys.)

Tom Hanks stars as symbologist Robert Langdon, who is soon embroiled in a murder mystery where the Louvre curator, Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is the victim. The detective in charge of solving the case, Captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) is a man torn between two worlds - his faith, for he belongs to a devout Catholic sect named the Opus Dei, and the world where justice prevails. Initially thinking that the two worlds were indubitably linked together, he realises that there is a twist to the story (which I will considerately not reveal to the reader here).

Sophie Neveu (played by Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame) is introduced to the crime scene, where her first contribution is to rescue Langdon from the suspecting eyes of Bezu Fache, who had apparently been tipped off by a mystery man that Langdon is the murderer. The escape soon turns into a treasure hunt for the Holy Grail - which Dan Brown controversially puts as something that is not really a chalice, but the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

The controversy aside, this adrenaline-pumping escape-cum-treasure hunt does not seem to translate well on the screen (at least, not to the direction of Ron Howard, who did A Beautiful Mind with such aplomb, however). The scene involving the famous Fibonacci sequence was poorly explained, as well as many of the more intriguing puzzles - it was certainly not at all an enlightening ride for my friends who hadn't finished the book yet.

It is unfortunate that the book was not well-adapted as well - the movie, too, climaxed too early, as many moviegoers who have read the novel will understand, and overall there was little doubt to cast on the people who predicted that the film was not going to be as well-received as the book itself.

Still, it is still interesting to see many of Da Vinci's creations in real pictorial detail - after all, a picture paints a thousand words, and this can certainly be taken literally with Da Vinci's works, Madonna on the Rocks as well as the most-talked about of them all, The Last Supper. Is the person on the left of Jesus Christ actually John or Mary Magdalene?

The questions do not end with a movie that is confusing to say the least.

Decipher rates it 2.5/5