Anthony Lane has a devastating review of The Da Vinci Code, both book and movie, in The New Yorker. Excerpts:
He [Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks] and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the countryside and spill every possible bean. In this case, the duffer is Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who lectures them on the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. We get a flashback to the council in question, and I must say that, though I have recited the Nicene Creed throughout my adult life, I never realized that it was originally formulated in the middle of a Beastie Boys concert. * *
There is also Silas (Paul Bettany), a cowled albino monk whose hobbies
include self-flagellation, multiple homicide, and irregular Latin
verbs. He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely
secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a
seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue. Silas answers to Bishop
Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), who in turn answers to his cell phone, his
Creator, and not much else. Between them, they track Langdon and Sophie
to England, where a new villain, hitherto suspected by nobody except
the audience, is prevented from shooting his quarry because, unusual
for London, there is a gaggle of nuns in the way—God’s Work if ever I
saw it, although I wouldn’t say so to a member of Opus Dei. * * *[N]o question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound
mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what
time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated
junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the
opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through
the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word,
“renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of
elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along
with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried
far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic,
unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s
right.) * * *The film is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman, the
master wordsmith who brought us “Batman & Robin.” I assumed that
such an achievement would result in Goldsman’s being legally banned
from any of the verbal professions, but, no, here he is yet again. * * *Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,
except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be
half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film.
It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that
could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside
from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more,
while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous
fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole
beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of
whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance
will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the
price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.
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