This Week's Hot Pick: 'The Da Vinci Code'

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Ron Howard's film of the best-selling novel is a well-acted, richly textured and only occasionally muddled thriller that refuses to speak down to its audience or back away from Dan Brown's criticism of the historic Catholic Church.

Considering the immense challenges involved in adapting such a talky tome, it's something of a pleasant surprise. And, despite not living up to the overwrought hype before its release, "The Da Vinci Code" grossed more than $217 million domestically, making it the fourth-most successful film of 2006, and $750 million worldwide.

Extras on the two-disc DVD include 11 making-of featurettes, including pieces on Brown and stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

The adaptation sheds large chunks of the book's saga and elements of the puzzle, but it has an exciting visual texture that gives body to Brown's bestseller-ese prose, and uniformly strong performances that give dimension, depth and interest to characters that the author never entirely brought to life. As a thriller and conveyer of an elaborate conspiracy theory, it's only moderately successful. But it consistently holds one's interest, and it never seeks to oversimplify its convoluted case or in any way talk down to its audience.

Hanks plays Robert Langdon, an expert in religious symbols who is the chief suspect in the grisly ritual murder of the director of the Louvre. Tautou is Sophie, the victim's granddaughter and Parisian policewoman, who -- over the course of one eventful day and night -- helps him battle conservative Roman Catholic fanatics in a quest to find the Holy Grail.

Where the film really shines is in Howard's clever use of special effects to make scenes from the ancient past live in the present and to display some of Brown's arguments. The blue-chip actors also elevate the characters far beyond Brown's capabilities. Hanks and Tautou are totally engaging, while Jean Reno, Paul Bettany and Ian McKellen also shine.

149 minutes. Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content. (William Arnold)

GRADE: B+