The film that has incensed Christian groups around the world is ‘dull', nothing more than ‘spiritual tripe', and certainly ‘no masterpiece'.
LONDON: The film that has incensed Christian groups around the world is ‘dull', nothing more than ‘spiritual tripe', and certainly ‘no masterpiece'.
More than 1,000 of the world's critics and film-writers saw The Da Vinci Code in a special preview before its release in Cannes on Wednesday. Their combined reaction was one of disappointment.
"The film isn't as good as it wants you to think it is," said Baz Bamingboye of The Daily Mail, describing the $200m thriller as spiritual tripe.
"But there are enough believers of (author) Dan Brown to make it a box-office hit."
James Christopher of The Times said no one could mistake director Ron Howard for Fellini after his latest offering and argued that the story is so "far-fetched that it brings tears of pure joy to the eyes".
Major criticism is reserved for Akiva Goldman, the man responsible for adapting Brown's book, whose lines do not ring true, no matter how well they are delivered.
Actor Sir Ian McKellen is singled out by all for his magnetic portrayal of the dastardly theological historian Sir Leigh Teabing. "He gives a master class in how to say a line, even if it's meaningless," says Bamingboye.
Even the self-appointed Roman Catholic experts in the field of the Da Vinci Code studies were sceptical about the film. "It was as dull as anything. It was like a long, tedious history lecture in dusty churches by lunatics," said Dr Austen Ivereigh, spokesperson for The Da Vinci Code Response Group. "I want to be indignant about it, but I can't. The same objections that we have to the book have to stand against the film."
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