by Rianne Hill Soriano

Created on: August 27, 2010

Other than the theme exploring the inscrutable code about alleged heretical bloodline of Jesus, The Da Vinci Code is ironically conservative in presentation compared to what its detractors is condemning it for. This work of fiction turns out to be an honest audio-visual counterpart of the book; however, its too play safe execution tends to become quite bland and disappointing.

The Da Vinci Code seems to be a rehash of worn out themes explored in writing and various forms of art. The book is creative and intellectually challenging under the genius of Dan Brown. With his fetish on art, codes, cryptology, symbols, anagrams, conspiracy theories, mysteries, and the like, the phenomenal success of his novel is naturally struck by worldwide protests.

The film overtly tries to balance things out. Apart from trying to clear itself by rendering no factual theological claims to alter historical chronicling (just pure combination of art, suspense, and imagination), it presents a fictional story about the blank supposition that Jesus and Mary Magdalene got actually got married. Supporting this claim is Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper with Mary Magdalene in the painting. This represents the Grail bloodline by dichotomizing Jesus and Mary Magdalene with a V-contour to manifest the Grail as a womb.

The Da Vinci Code clearly becomes too cautious of the religious groups’ breakout that the film suffers tremendously with it. The impressive special effects provides a creative presentation of the anagrams and codes as extension of Robert Langdon’s mind. The ingeniously placed flashbacks make the film seamless in terms of visuals; but the film still looks too contrived in terms of emotional space and execution.

The audience doesn’t get involved, unlike with the book where the reader becomes part of Langdon’s search and decoding. In the book, the reader is part of the quest, of the action, and of the emotion. In the film, the viewer is a mere spectator. The viewer mostly watches Langdon’s back, his reactions and the seamless extension of his mind where the moving planets and well-lit letters are seen. He interprets the clues. He decodes. The audience watches. Even the suspense and thrill of knowing what’s next is lost. Ron Howard carefully treats the visuals with tight and intimate shots, and yet the audience can’t dig

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