Saw the Da Vinci Code this weekend...
BJ and I went to see the DaVinci Code this weekend. I had high expectations for the movie because most of the reviews I'd read said it was boring and intellectual and since I'd studied art history and the history of the ancient world in college, I figured I should really enjoy it. Well... it was okay. I guess I'll have to read the book before I say too much about it. I thought that the acting was top notch. The subtitles annoyed me (yeah, I know, they're necessary, but I still found them distracting...) But what really disappointed me about the movie was the way the information was presented. By the reviews I'd read, I'd expected a movie that wouldn't talk down to me... What I found was art history/theological history/ancient history 101, mixed in with some old, tired conspiracy theories. I would like to have seen more about how the professor cracked the codes along the way. Instead, I was bored with a history review of the Council of Nicaea. I was annoyed even more by the two women sitting in front of me who got very excited at that point because they'd actually heard of the Council of Nicaea (well, councils, actually, but I'm not going to go into that).
That scene where they were telling about the significance of the Council of Nicaea. It really hit me that this movie had been watered down for the masses. I should have expected it, I know, but I'd read all the lovely reviews about how it was an intellectual movie. So I guess I was disappointed by that. Hmmmm, maybe I'm just over-educated in the field....
There are two other things I didn't like and one other thing I did. I didn't like the obvious visual cues that sort of spoiled the suspense. Um, okay, spoiler warning if you haven't seen the movie. Okay, it was pretty obvious that they were setting Sofie up to be the modern scion of Mary Magdalen. Every painting, every statue of Mary Magdalen they walked by, Sofie was framed to physically resemble. So when I got to that point in the movie (was that meant to be a climax in the film?!) where they reveal that she is the scion, I was just like, 'eh'. The other thing that bothered me is this: So what if she is the scion of Mary Magdalen? That doesn't necessarily make her a descendant of Jesus Christ. The woman could have remarried after his death and had plenty of children. And the part about the possibility that Mary Magdalen had been pregnant at the time of Jesus's death? She could have lost the child... she would have been under extreme stress and miscarriages aren't uncommon. The point is, it's all very uncertain and such an uncertain revelation surely would not topple a religious empire.
But the thing I liked? No romance. I was waiting for it... a sappy ending with Sofie and the professor. But it didn't come. I'm not sure why that pleases me... but I just don't like sappy endings.
Soooo, now I want to go and read the book and see if some of these things I don't like are just in the movie. Hmmm, I mean, it wasn't a bad movie. It was entertaining and it was more intellectual than most I've seen lately. And the acting was very good... and cast was great. But it has the same problem as that Numb3rs TV show my parents sometimes watch... they try awfully hard to sound intellectual, yet when you listen to what they're actually saying... it's not all that clever :/
That scene where they were telling about the significance of the Council of Nicaea. It really hit me that this movie had been watered down for the masses. I should have expected it, I know, but I'd read all the lovely reviews about how it was an intellectual movie. So I guess I was disappointed by that. Hmmmm, maybe I'm just over-educated in the field....
There are two other things I didn't like and one other thing I did. I didn't like the obvious visual cues that sort of spoiled the suspense. Um, okay, spoiler warning if you haven't seen the movie. Okay, it was pretty obvious that they were setting Sofie up to be the modern scion of Mary Magdalen. Every painting, every statue of Mary Magdalen they walked by, Sofie was framed to physically resemble. So when I got to that point in the movie (was that meant to be a climax in the film?!) where they reveal that she is the scion, I was just like, 'eh'. The other thing that bothered me is this: So what if she is the scion of Mary Magdalen? That doesn't necessarily make her a descendant of Jesus Christ. The woman could have remarried after his death and had plenty of children. And the part about the possibility that Mary Magdalen had been pregnant at the time of Jesus's death? She could have lost the child... she would have been under extreme stress and miscarriages aren't uncommon. The point is, it's all very uncertain and such an uncertain revelation surely would not topple a religious empire.
But the thing I liked? No romance. I was waiting for it... a sappy ending with Sofie and the professor. But it didn't come. I'm not sure why that pleases me... but I just don't like sappy endings.
Soooo, now I want to go and read the book and see if some of these things I don't like are just in the movie. Hmmm, I mean, it wasn't a bad movie. It was entertaining and it was more intellectual than most I've seen lately. And the acting was very good... and cast was great. But it has the same problem as that Numb3rs TV show my parents sometimes watch... they try awfully hard to sound intellectual, yet when you listen to what they're actually saying... it's not all that clever :/