Common Sense Note
Parents should know that the movie opens with a brutal murder and includes several other bloody scenes, including a naked man beating himself. (SPOILER ALERT) The subject matter is too convoluted to interest young kids so unless you want to shush them, leave them home. A couple of characters use mild profanity although most of the cursing shows up in French and in subtitles. The film's plot, based on Dan Brown's novel, suggests that the Catholic Church has for centuries repressed the "truth," that Jesus was human, married Mary Magdalene, and fathered a daughter. Some viewers may find the issues raised -- Jesus' divinity and the Church's cover-up -- upsetting.
Families who see this movie can talk about the film's premise and the controversy it has inspired. How does the controversy help to promote the movie? What is appealing about conspiracy theories? They can also compare the movie to the book.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
THE DA VINCI CODE is surprisingly unwieldy and conventional, despite and because of the controversy surrounding it. While the movie often looks like it's offering subjective views into world-renowned symbologist Robert Langdon's (Tom Hanks) mind, in effect these images are silly and slow. The special effects are unconvincing as paintings and sculptures move, and the explanatory voice-overs tend to repeat what's obvious.
When Dr. Langdon is called by Parisian policeman Capt. Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) to consult on a murder case, the scholar is briefly flattered, then daunted when he learns he is a suspect, owing to a note left by the victim. Along with the victim's granddaughter, cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), Langdon tries to decipher the message, which begins with the victim's arranging of his own body to approximate Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. "Symbols," says the doctor early on, "are a language that can help us understand our past."
Indeed: The film belabors this point, laying out a series of pasts, including the murderer's (a self-flagellating albino Opus Dei monk named Silas [Paul Bettany]), Sophie's (her parents' deaths in a car wreck, her longtime estrangement from her grandfather), Langdon's (his fall into a well as a child), and the planet's (tediously literal flashbacks show bits of the Crusades, witch hunts, wars, conspiracies, and great works of art).
For all the mystical blurring of edges, however, the film doesn't make smart connections between periods or characters, instead sending Robert and Sophie on a kind of scavenger hunt from Paris to London. In this they are tracked by Fache and aided by Robert's colleague, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who claims to be thrilled to be on a "grail quest." The excitement, as most everyone knows already, has to do with the Catholic Church's cover-up -- for thousands of years -- concerning Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
The film offers too much explanation (the scholars tell each other stories they should already know, to ensure viewers keep up). The plot includes multiple murders, the grail hunt, the conspiracy, and oh so sensationally, the scary-looking monk Silas (who is directed in his many violent acts by Bishop Aringarosa [Alfred Molina] and a voice on a cell phone, identified as the Teacher). The untangling of all the plot strands leads not to an interrogation of various institutions (academe, the cops, the Church), but to a pile-on of much less interesting personal pathologies.
Families who like this movie will want to read Dan Brown's book. You might also enjoy the more family friendly Indiana Jones series .
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentSome famous paintings show women's naked body parts; Silas appears naked as he performs self-flagellation (you see only his backside and close-ups of limbs); discussion of gender roles includes mention of penises (emblem of "male aggression"). |
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ViolenceShooting murder opens the film; Silas whips and cuts himself, showing blood and cringing/grimacing in pain; grainy flashback scenes repeatedly show violence (Crusades/knights, battles/armies, witch hunts/burnings, visualizing various narrations of "history"); personal flashbacks include Silas' abuse as a child, young Robert trapped in a well, and young Sophie crying/afraid, in the harrowing car accident that killed her parents; general action includes shootings, fisticuffs, poisoning, kicks/slaps; Silas kills a nun by smashing her head; blood on shirts and faces. |
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LanguageSome swearing, including French with subtitles ("s--t," "bastard") and English ("Jesus," "hell"). |
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Social BehaviorTo protect a secret, characters kill, lie, rob, and injure. |
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