The Da Vinci Code
It was almost a month ago that I had picked the novel "Da Vinci Code" from the Library. And ever since I started reading it, I was fascinated by the intriguing story and thrilling moments in the novel - it was really a page turner. Dan Brown, the author was successful in creating a fiction thriller from a very sensitive subject. Altogether it was _not_so_bad_ reading experience and I was looking forward to see how the mystery might unfold on the screen.At last yesterday, I watched the film “Da Vinci Code”, and it is sad to say that the film is a let down compared to the novel. In the film, many details are glossed over, making it feel rushed and sketchy at times. Too much occurs that is confusingly explained or hardly explained at all. This may be a disadvantage of making a 2 hours film from a novel which has around 600 pages. I really wonder a viewer who hasn’t read the novel will be more confused than entertained after watching this film. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon has nothing much to do and so is other casts in the movie, though they all looks right selection for the character they played. The only mildly engaging characters are Holy Grail scholar Leigh Teabing (played by Ian McKellen) and Silas (played by Paul Bettany)
Checkout this interesting video of the television program "The Real Da Vinci Code", a Wildfire Television production for Channel 4 - the mystery that surrounds the "Holy Grail" and historians opinions about it.
posted by Suneesh TP at
6:12 AM
6 Comments:
TP,I don't want to start a battle again in your blog.
I was waiting to see the MOVIE. But this post made me disappointed. If it is not good as the BOOK why I should see it!!!
Whatever has been written in a book cannot be converted into the celluloid as such. To make it perfect is the beauty of the director. May be Ron Howard has erred here. I have only seen a movie that was 99.99% equivalent to the Book, that is The Silence Of the Lambs. There may be others but this is the one I have seen, felt and seen again. And then there are a lot of Malayalam Movies. In Malayalam, most of them are adaptations of shortstories, which makes it simpler to convert to film. But in English, they take novels to be made films. And it is too much demanding for the director to copy cut-to-cut from the book to the film. Impossible. In that sense the movie may have lost a bit here and there. The worst thing is when we start to compare. A Code which takes one or 2 chapters to decode is decoded in few minutes. So you have to keep in mind that.
For eg : IF you have read Runaway Jury by Grisham, in that there is a process of selecting the jury, which is very well written and interesting. In the movie it last just 2or 3 minutes, none of the processes are explained. And I left at the half time :-)
Joju- I can feel your emotion, these are some of interesting facts. MAy be true, may not be true. No need to start battles on that. Checkout that Video TP has put in.
But FYI - I have a gut feeling that something somewhere has happened. :-)
That Video is an interesting one. I watched it completely, Thanks TP for putting that in. But it concludes no where :(. Now I feel I should read, The Holy Bible and The holy grail, the holy blood in that order :-)
Correct, I will invite you both for a battle in my next Da vinci code post(if any) !!!
Simple question: if ..only if
If somebody could prove Priory of Sion is a hoax, then where does the whole drama go ??
@joju - The book is far better compared to the film. You better read the book first, then you can watch the film as a time-pass
No need for a fight...it's just a fiction story!
@dhanush - I completely agree with you. There are lots of limitation to make a movie from a novel. The beauty of the book was that it's detailed explanation of each incidents and the thought process happening with each characters taking one by one. But it's almost impossible to show all these in a movie. As you said, a code which took many pages to decode took just few minutes in the film, without giving much explanation. There was also no "cryptex inside cryptex" stuff in the film, thus by avoiding to find the "old wisdom" related password (sofie)...and many like this.
There are also couple of other changes in the climax compared to the novel....Altogether Ron Howard couldn't pull this off well!
I loved the DaVinci Code but even in the book the ending dissapointed me. I have heard the movie is no good...so dropped plans of seeing it. And Dansuh is rite, there r very few movies which do justcie to the books.
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