The Da Vinci Code

• Popcorn.
  
  All hail the resurrection of the popcorn movie. In her grand cathedral, the Cinerama Dome, guarded by burly men who waved magic wands at me and felt me up like a cheap date, she was brought back in all her cheesy and melodramatic splendor. The Da Vinci Code is what a popcorn movie used to be and what a popcorn movie should always be. The following is the proper recipe for a popcorn film:
  
  A ridiculous, far fetched plot
  Overacting
  Overacting by superstar actors
  At least one bad accent but the more the merrier
  Fast cuts and other director 101 tricks
  Grandiose music
  No plot, or at the very least a minimalistic one.
  The ability to poke fun at itself.
  Melodrama
  
  What gets lost in all of the hoopla surrounding this movie is that The Da Vinci Code is pure pulp fiction. While this fact might have been disguised by the subject matter of the book there is nowhere to hide on a silver screen. The dialogue was revealed for what it was ridiculous and cheesy. Ron Howard, the director, could have traversed down one of two paths.
  He could have taken the book seriously and tried to make a serious movie out of this. He could have emphasized the theories behind the book and the persecution of the church, along with a host of other things. This would have made for a terrible movie because, frankly those things are boring.
  Instead he choose to highlight the campiness of the book. He realized that the reason people loved the book was not because it was great fiction but because it was very engrossing. You kept reading one page after another because you where dying to find out what was going to happen at the end. A book has the luxury of time, a movie has no such luxury. Thus, in order to keep the movie as engrossing as the book it had to be speed up. When something is speed up out go the theories and in comes the action.
  Thus, in the end we are left with a film that damns convention and is simply a fun movie to watch. It takes us back to a pre-political correct world in which the French policemen seem to have all been trained by Inspector Clouseau. The mastermind, in true American fashion, turns out to be one of our allies the British, I knew we could not trust those no ice in their drink bastards. The villain, like our enemies during the cold war, is easily recognizable as evil; he is albino after all. The church is up to no good because Italians run it. In short the whole world is evil because they are not Americans. Oh, and the hero of course is American and he is from a prestigious W.A.S.P. school, Harvard. Yes, the co-hero is French, but she is hot so that is okay. If you think I am crazy, you are probably right, but look at the movie poster: Red, White, and Blue.
  So will this movie change the world, of course not. Does it really have a point, no. If you want to see a movie that will leave you thinking and question your existence on this earth, this is not the film for you. If you want a good date movie, then by all means go and see this film.
  
  

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