The Da Vinci Code

Year: 2006 Rating: PG Overall Evaluation: 4.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 2.0 / 10 2.0 / 10 8.0 / 10 9.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content. None of this was gratuitous except perhaps the penis references used for comedic effect.

Story

If you haven't yet read the book then most of this will be a spoiler but none of the rest of the review will make sense without knowing the main plot line. Overall, this is a mystery story that begins with the bizarre death of the curator of the Louvre. Our hero, an expert in symbology, is called in as an advisor and (unbeknownst to him) a suspect. He ends up with the curator's granddaughter after following a series of riddles and clues that lead them to believe that the curator was actually the last living person who knew the location of the Holy Grail.

[SPOILER WARNING!]

As it turns out, the Holy Grail is not the cup Christ drank from at the last supper - rather it is His holy bloodline that began when he impregnated his wife Mary Magdalene! The Grail is really symbolic of her womb and the pagan worship of the sacred feminine which the evil Roman Catholic Church has covered up for 2,000 years. So our hero must race against both the RC Church as well as some of its more fanatical members to find Mary Magdalene's final resting place before it is lost or destroyed (which would thereby make proving the Holy bloodline impossible).

Relative to the book . . .

If you have read the book this won't spoil the story but it will highlight one of the more significant details of the movie that changed the message somewhat. If you have not read the book it probably won't make much difference. In the book the hero, Langdon, and the historian, Teabing, are completely in agreement with one another and we are never given even a taste of contrary evidence or opposing theories (of which there are many of much higher quality!). In the movie, however, Langdon is somewhat skeptical of the whole Grail legend. Further, Teabing is not portrayed as a master historian in the movie, but more of an eccentric old rich guy. At the end of the film, however, comes a dramatic "conversion experience" with Langdon kneeling before Mary Magdalene's tomb. Thus, although the film started out as slightly more of a balancing act between truth and error, it ends with an almost stronger affirmation of error than the book.

Suppositions

Although Da Vinci Code is put forth as fictional, the background is not. In the book author Dan Brown sets forth as fact several of the historical gaffs he makes in the novel. The issue here is one of historical fiction and just how far that fictional element extends. The difficulty is that those ignorant of the subject matter do not have the tools to tell the difference between the fictional foreground and the equally fictional background elements. I have written on some of these on SoulDevice and won't repeat it all in this evaluation, but suffice it to say that virtually nothing in Brown's conspiracy theory is true or taken seriously even by liberal historians.

Significance

The author, through the characters in the story and in person, has stated quite clearly that not only should his audience believe this stuff, but that Christianity would be "brought to its knees" if the it were ever proven true. That is the message of the film. However, as I show in the article referenced above, this message fails even as a hypothetical. Only Brown's complete lack of understanding concerning Jesus' dual-natures would even make it seem that this would be the case. It is not simply that mistakes were made, the movie's lies are so bold and so numerous that they basically ruin an otherwise intriguing story by making it so completely ridiculous (while presenting it as something that should be taken seriously).