Wednesday, May 17, 2006

What If It Just Sucks?

I admit, I'm psyched for the "Da Vinci Code" movie - I enjoyed the book (well, the reading, since I 'read' it while driving from Minnesota to Texas a few years back. Brown's rather leaden prose is more easily digestable when spoken, apparently.) And the stupidity of the 'controversy' surrounding the film is delicious - if there is one thing that you would think people have learned by now, it's that creating a stink about something ensures a wider audience then there would have been. No publicity is bad publicity, etc.

And, as has been noted, the book was pretty much written to become a blockbuster screenplay. Add Tom Hanks, Opie Cunningham, Gandalf, and Hot French Chick du juor, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one, suckasge. A possibility that I'd never really considered is that it might turn out to be just a Bad Movie, not an Evil movie, Dr. Dobson, just a bad, bad movie. Consider:
At Cannes, one scene during the film, meant to be serious, elicited prolonged laughter from the audience, and when the credits rolled, there was no applause, only a few catcalls and hisses. Things were no better Stateside, where the film screened for critics in New York.

The Hollywood Reporter headlined its review, " 'Da Vinci Code' an unwieldy, bloated puzzle."

"No chemistry exists between the hero and heroine, and motivation remains a troubling sore point," wrote reviewer Kirk Honeycutt, panning Tom Hanks' "remote, even wooden performance." Only co-star Ian McKellen managed to avoid criticism.
As the canines are wont to say, "Ruh Roh!"

Consider my expectations lowered. But I'll still be there on Friday.

3 comments:

Ahistoricality said...

"No chemistry exists between the hero and heroine, and motivation remains a troubling sore point,"

In other words, it's a faithful rendition of the book....

bill said...

I have no interest in the book (for similar subject matter by a brilliant writer, get Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum"), but thought it could make for a fun and mindless summer movie.

Just one problem--Opie Cunningham. Now, I haven't seen all his movies, it's just that all the ones I have seen--while being beautifully filmed--have been godawful boring. So the reviews are not surprising. No one can suck the life out of an interesting story like he can.

slickdpdx said...

I second bill! And I'm amused by ahistoricality (which is a real fingertwister to type).