Monday, January 22, 2007
The DaVinci Code
The Wife and I rented The DaVinci Code Saturday night, and it was a rather boring, drab interpretation of the book. (I know, this is an incredibly timely review, given that the movie came out almost a year ago. But that’s how long it takes me to finally see movies. Being a parent is awesome that way.)
The problem I had with The DaVinci Code is that I couldn’t get into it. I had a hard time figuring out why. There’s the natural problem that this is a movie adaptation of a best-selling book. Those never go off well. Even a great movie like Jurassic Park pales in comparison to the book. And yes, Jurassic Park really is a great movie. If you didn’t know there was a book by the same title, you’d probably think it’s one of the best of all time. But the book was SO good that the movie is really just a shadow. It can’t possibly live up to the excitement that the book generated.
And sure, that’s part of the problem with The DaVinci Code. In the book, the characters are racing all over Europe, solving problems as they go. There simply isn’t enough time in the movie for them to solve all the problems. But I think the producers actually did a reasonable job of marching the characters through the puzzles.
The problem was with Tom Hanks. He was woefully miscast in this movie as Professor Robert Langdon. Tom Hanks is a great actor, one of the best of his generation. But only in particular roles. He tends to be great in roles that make you smile. (Think Philadelphia. That gay lawyer was HILARIOUS.) He’s not really great at being cerebral. Try listening to him debate Sir Ian McKellan about the Priory of Scion. Boring.
And because of how the story is set-up, you can’t help but think of how much better it’d be with Harrison Ford as the lead. (Of course, the author, Dan Brown, poisoned our minds by describing Robert Langdon as “Indiana Jones in a tweed jacket.”) Now that Harrison Ford is getting up there in years, he probably wouldn’t be all that great in the role. Besides, it’d draw too many comparisons to Indiana Jones, which I’m sure Ron Howard was trying to avoid.
But the movie did draw comparisons to Indiana Jones. In fact, it made me realize how great of films they were. And one of the reasons was the musical score of the film. Just listening to John Williams’ music raised your pulse a couple of beats. The music on The DaVinci Code? I think it was written by John Tesh. And the truth is that John Tesh would be embarrassed to have his name associated with it. It was that bad.
Back to the poor casting. Harrison Ford is out. Tom Hanks is out. So who should gotten the role of Robert Langdon? Here’s my list of who I think would have played done a great job. Please feel free to forward this list to Ron Howard in case they go ahead and make Angels and Demons (a much better book, in my opinion).
- Peter Scholari – the smarter half of Bosom Buddies. He could easily pull of the cerebral part.
- Gary Sinise – he’s clearly able to find killers in CSI:New York. He should be able to find the last living descendant of Christ. Just use some forensics. Hello DNA testing!
- Harry Hamlin – good looking. Obviously needs work. I’m concerned he might want to wear a toga and pretend he’s Perceus at some point. You know he’d keep making jokes about Medusa whenever they passed a statue, particularly David.
- Gary Coleman – who says that Robert Langdon has to be white? Or tall? Or smart? Or talented? Gary Coleman fits perfectly! "Whachoo talkin' 'bout, DaVinci!"
- Keifer Sutherland – The DaVinci Code is on a tight timeframe. We know Keifer can work miracles in 24 hours. He’s good with a gun. He knows how to get information. (Granted, he’d have to torture books to get anything from them, but still. “I will burn your pages unless you tell me where Mary Magdalene is buried!”)
