I am a messenger of God, risking my life here to bring you the truth; a message so shocking that powerful forces are working to prevent it being exposed to the world. In this last week I have been accosted by monks, contacted by shadowy organisations and looked at funnily by my friends and family – actually that last one might not count…

Anyway I fear that I can’t simply blurt out the message, so instead have tracked down a line from an ancient hidden manuscript which reads: “Brutus quack comic you pompous twit Vinci.” My studies have found that It holds the secret in reverse about this film but can you break the code?*

Anyway – according to Dan ‘sold more books than had hot dinners’ Brown, we are in the middle of a war. One that has been going on forever to protect a secret so powerful that if revealed it would devastate the very foundations of mankind. This fictitious secret unlike the real one I’ve been trying to convey has been causing religious controversy the world over. The thing is people – it’s just a story, it’s not real… When I saw this at the cinema, there was an outburst of unexpected laughter by the audience when they heard the preposterous ‘shock’ announcement at the climax – so it looks like this is unlikely to dupe any but the most feeble minded of viewers.

Director Ron ‘A Beautiful Mind’ Howard should be flagellated for fumbling this potentially explosive experience, turning in almost three hours of mind numbing mumbo jumbo – here presented with an additional 25 minutes to make 174 minutes of life eating drudgery. Tom Hanks (borrowing a Nicolas Cage fright wigTM) is all at sea for once as icon expert Robert Langdon and even the lovely Audrey Tautou can’t maintain viewing interest – on hand simply to ask questions that allow for reams of exposition.

The only people seeming to have any fun on screen are Paul Bettany as the nutty ‘hit monk’ assassin Silas and Sir Ian McKellen who goes nicely over the top as the enigmatic Sir Leigh Teabing. In fact you have to wonder if Hank’s hasn’t slipped out of character and is pondering his involvement in this film when he utters the line: “I'm into something here that I cannot understand here.”

This 2-disc Blu-ray edition of The Da Vinci Code is heavenly blessed however with all of the special features that appear on the 2006 DVD, and also some exclusive new material. Get on your knees and marvel at the Picture-in-Picture ‘Unlocking the Code’ track and gasp in rapture as you witness the future with BD-Live Cinechat: which lets you chat online with other Blu-Movie buddies as the film plays using an on-screen text chat option. There is also a preview of Angels and Demons follow up (let’s all join hands and pray that it’s better than this first effort). Disc two includes more features than you could ever want including - First Day on the Set with Ron Howard, A Discussion with Dan Brown and Who is Sophie Neveu? There are also two Filmmaker's Journey featurettes and a Book to Screen backgrounder (which yet fails to show quite where they managed to extract the magic that made the book so good and the film so weak!?).

VERDICT:

Alas, even with the snazzy Blu extras, it’s not really worth buying into the hype for this dose of monk(ey) business. If you really want to see it in high def, I’d advise a rental rather than a buy as I can’t imagine many wanting to sit through this more than a couple of times tops. Having now seen this film twice myself I can’t ever imagine wanting to sit through it again.

*If you can’t break the code: Take the last letter of each word in the quote – starting with the last and work backwards to reveal the hidden secret about the film…

Back to DVD Reviews