“The Da Vinci Code”

Director: Ron Howard

Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany

Length: 149 minutes

Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content

Review: 4 / 5

It’s obvious Ron Howard is a product of Hollywood, but not because he can tackle controversy. It’s because he handles his hot-topic “The Da Vinci Code” with a diplomacy that can only be driven by the Hollywood profit machine.

Dan Brown’s book on which the movie is based may seem far-fetched, and the movie matches it religiously. However, they are both so wild that they become intriguing and immensely entertaining.

Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist in Paris for a lecture, when he unexpectedly becomes entangled in the murder of Louvre curator Jacques Sauni‚re. He is wrongly accused of the crime, and his only help comes from the curator’s granddaughter and cryptologist Sophie Neveu, played by “Amelie” star Audrey Tautou. Together, they follow a trail of clues left by Sauni‚re that are the key to solving his murder and uncovering a secret left by an age-old society.

Their quest sends them to some of the most famous sites in Europe on the trail of the “true” Holy Grail, that of the supposed bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. However, they can’t expect such a volatile secret to be easy to pursue, and their most dangerous opponent is Silas, an albino monk played by Paul Bettany, who is following orders from the “Teacher.” Langdon and Neveu seek the help of historian Sir Leigh Teabing, played by real-life knight Ian McKellen, but even he may be more involved than Langdon and Neveu believe.

Howard handles all of this with kid gloves, which blatantly says he’s trying not to offend people with the controversial story. In Brown’s book, Langdon purports the alternate Holy Grail story as true. In the film, however, Langdon is a little less eager to verify what he calls a “myth,” a story some may choose to believe.

It’s probably a smart move on Howard’s part, as it doesn’t alter the book’s intensity in this film version. However, it does compromise the characters a bit because Hanks has to play Langdon differently from the all-knowing book character. Rather, in the film, Tautou’s character seems to be more sure and more informed.

These are big characters for Hanks and Tautou to tackle, and they are – for the most part – faithful to Brown’s development. Hanks, however, is a little less easy-going as Langdon than readers might picture. However, his underacting is countered by the uber-dramatic performances by McKellen and Bettany. McKellen is perfect as Teabing, with an eccentricity that make him seem like a misplaced medieval knight, and Bettany is purely creepy as the murderous and self-punishing Silas.

Howard’s adaptation may actually be better than Brown’s book in some ways. It’s an extremely faithful version, but it’s more exciting because it has a tighter story. Whereas the book meanders, the film easily cuts across the action. Basically, it’s better because it’s a better visual story. It’s more exciting, and less has to be explained when it can be shown.

What’s most impressive, however, is Howard’s cinematography. It’s obvious he directed “A Beautiful Mind,” as he employs some of the same techniques when he’s playing with the numbers and codes in front of Langdon. The rich settings of Brown’s book provide a good canvas for Howard, and he aptly makes them into his own world.

“The Da Vinci Code” succeeds because it proves a movie can be a faithful adaptation without being zapped of its life. It takes an already hard-to-believe story and makes it into an impossible movie, but, whether the audience believes its idea, it’s also undeniably fun in its intensity. People will want to follow “The Da Vinci Code” to the end.