One of the many controversies surrounding the Da Vinci Code is that it claims Jesus had a wife and kids. And why not? The bible claims that Jesus was indeed a human so why should he be exempt from human temptations and indulgences? Religions have a tendency to present their teachings as being matter-of-fact, to the point where they are blinded to their own fallacies. In fact, I believe no religion has one absolute truth because no life has one absolute truth. Martin Scorsese, who once toyed with the idea of becoming a priest, dealt with this same subject matter to greater depth in his The Last Temptation of Christ.

Federico Fellini, one of the greatest men to ever stand behind the camera, built a career out of these kids of ideas. An Italian from Rimini, he was raised with the church and yet mocked it constantly within his films. Instead, he was fascinated with analyzing the polarity of life, how every coin has two sides. Life is about possibilities and choices; to Fellini’s world, in which reality and fantasy were interchangeable, spirituality was a guide to making the right choices and religion equaled entrapment. The point is that, for both of these great filmmakers and men of God, their belief in God did not need to stand separate from their questions and doubts about Him. That’s the beauty of spirituality; questions are what are important as answers simply don’t exist.

Then comes Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code, a novel that could never be mistaken for great literature, or barely even great entertainment for that matter; which is more or less what Ron Howard’s filmic adaptation strives to be. Both book and film have caused tremendous public outrage within the church who wanted it banned. The irony with this church related controversy is that it has gotten so huge that people will read the book and see the film just to see what all the fuss is about. If the church wanted to hurt the Da Vinci Code, they would keep quiet about it, then there would be no hype, no expectations, no reason to see the film other than for purposes of entertainment; polarity indeed.            

The film itself works as remarkable entertainment, a real engaging potboiler: the product of a great storyteller. Ron Howard directs with the masterful ability to create wonderful suspense out of sheer lunacy by taking a story that has many people standing around talking and punctuating it with fantastic action. The book has a lot of static conversation in which time seems to stop. Howard never lets the narrative go into a state of standstill; there is some kinetic force always onscreen, some sort of action transpiring in the background. This is the key to good suspense

This stands in stark contrast with the book, which is the product of a showoff. Brown as a writer uses copious amounts of jargon to cover up how ridiculous and threadbare his original narrative actually was, using fancy descriptions of elegant locations and works of art in order to cover up absurdity as intelligence. Howard on the other hand, finds what is engaging about the story: the mysteries, the cliffhangers, the climaxes, and builds action and suspense around that. The book is comprised of rambling description; the film is comprised of rousing motion.

Another key to the films success is in its choice of actors. Tom Hanks stars as Robert Langdon an expert in symbolism, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu, a cryptologist who must have one of the sweetest faces in France, and the constantly enjoyable Ian McKellen: very good here as Sir. Leigh Teabing, a man who has dedicated his life’s work to matters of the Holy Grail. All three actors fit so perfectly into their roles because they play them straight. The Da Vinci Code is a film that is filled with unending narrative twists and turns, each more ludicrous than the last, that could never really be believable. Yet the actors play their characters as if they were real people in real situations that are really happening, which is important because a film need not be believable to be enjoyable, but no matter what, you at least expect it to believe in itself.

There is no reason that I can find not to see this film. It is pure entertainment and on that level it works, which is all that any audience member could ask for. The story itself is no more believable an attack against Christianity than believing that aliens are brainwashing us through the administering of the flu shot. You catch my drift? To get angry about something, which is meant merely to entertain, is simply an excuse for organizations to preach their own beliefs as being absolute. George Carlin once ended a stand-up routine by dissecting the Ten Commandments. By the time he was done, he was down to two commandments. He then added in a third one for good measure: thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself. Amen.