Da Vinci Code: Opie Gets an F

SPOILERS BELOW

It must have been hard to be Ron Howard growing up. At some point. A brilliant child actor becomes a two-time TV star, breaks into movie directing and makes some of the most brilliant films of the last ten years. A direct path to Hollywood immortality.

Unfortunately with "The Da Vinci Code" he has finally become an underachiever.

I think Ron made several key errors in attempting to remain too true to the runaway best selling novel by Dan Brown. What should have been an Indy Jones style thriller, became a very talky, fairly slow film with an extreme lack of suspense. Exposition, exposition, exposition! And after the exposition, the characters told us what was going on one more time just to make sure we got it! STOP!

Think back to the INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE. In it, Dr. Jones presents several key exposition points to his class very early in the film - like "X never, ever marks the spot." Later in the film when it does, we remember that line and are able to follow along without further comment.

In staying faithful to the book, Howard failed to make efficient use of Langdon's speech about ancient iconography. Had he mentioned the male and female triangles that are discussed later in the film, we would have been prepared for it in advance, and we would have been spared yet another lesson on symbology. As a result, Langdon's speech was useless in terms of exposition and ate up valuable screen time.

Then there's the climax at about the two hour mark, followed by 20 minutes of 'revelation' but absolutely no danger for the characters, no energy, no oomph. It read well in book form, but as a follow up to the previous 2 hours, the sequence just falls flat.

Sometimes one has to wander away from the source material a bit to make it more interesting in a different medium. Take "Jurassic Park," for instance. A great book. A great movie - but a movie that differs from the book in significant ways. Surely, SOMEONE could have tightened things up for us at the end of "Da Vinci." Wasn't there some way to continue the peril for the characters as we worked up to the 'big reveal?' Isn't that why they pay screenwriters the big bucks?

So, color me disappointed. There's nothing as tough as failing to live up to one's potential. Little Ronnie Howard may be mortal after all.