The Da Vinci Code: Cinematic Controversy
Film adds confusion to already complicated faith debate
Review by Lynne Marian, Executive Editor
Outreach magazine
Hollywood, Calif., (May 17, 2006) -- Just as author Dan Brown is accused of taking literary license with biblical truth in his runaway bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, so director Ron Howard and company take broad cinematic license with Brown’s best-selling book in the new movie, The Da Vinci Code, releasing May 19 worldwide. In the film, starring Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Audrey Tatou and Paul Bettany, Howard brings this literary juggernaut to life, but with only limited success.
Initially engaging viewers through rapid-fire sequences of the complex story line, Da Vinci slows to a crawl toward the end, making the audience wish more than once that the movie would be over. Numerous incidental and even core elements of the original story have been altered, likely ensuring outrage among the millions of devotees of Brown’s novel.
Ian McKellan’s performance as Sir Leigh Teabing, Da Vinci’s “puppet master,” is excellent, but really the only standout among the cast’s otherwise lackluster performances.
In the past several months, the Christian community has shown great interest in how the film would address the historical faith questions raised by Brown in his book: Was Jesus just a man? Was He married to Mary Magdalene? Did they have a child? And has the Christian church perpetrated the “biggest cover up in human history?” The movie indeed shines a bright light on these issues that many Christians would consider “heresy.”
However, the film goes beyond the religious skepticism of Brown’s book to introduce its own brand of New Age spiritual relativism. Was Jesus God or man? According to the movie, it doesn’t really matter because we may all have “divine” power. In the words of Robert Langdon (Hanks), what matters is “what you believe.”
In the closing sequence we see Langdon kneeling in prayer. But viewers are left wondering … who is he praying to?