If I can only take one thing out of the movie theatre after watching The Da Vinci Code after early midnight today, that will be it. What Tom Hanks's character of the Harvard professor Robert Langdon was saying to Audrey Tatou's character of French cryptologist Sophie Neveu when they were at outside the Rosslyn Chapel.
The only thing that matters is what you believe. How fitting is that? In such current times where many of us are aware how it's like nowadays from the news and all that, it's definitely a message to send home about whatever you believe in. No matter what it is.
Whoa! It's going to be kind of long to say about my reactions after watching the movie with my father. From what I had learnt after reviewing Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, there's no point telling the whole movie plot in a blog entry. LOL. Might as well just say how you feel and all that.
The movie line I have it in italics - that is the final feeling I have when I came out of the movie theatre. When I went to the toilet inside the shopping centre (the movie theatre is in the Shaw House actually and Wisma Atria is the anchor tenant), waiting for my father doing his 'business', on the way home in the car explaining some of the things to my father that were mentioned in the book and the movie, before I went to sleep and minutes after I woke up this morning. So many things to ponder about, just from the movie line alone.
As I went to watch the 9.30pm screening with my father and with the whole movie two and a half hours long, it was already after midnight when my father and I came out of the movie theatre. For my father, he had accompanied me because he knew I did read the book and have some background knowledge beforehand. We did met some of my father's friends before the start of the movie and it's practically the same thing he told his friends about me. 'My daughter had read the book.' Saying that umpteen times to whatever friends he met! I'm like thinking - 'Get me out of here!'.
He even asked one of his friends (before the start of the movie) whether he's a Christian or not (given how I told my father beforehand that not all Christians are happy about the novel already) and it was his friend's wife who replied that she is. She had read the book and feel that it's just simply, a novel. Nothing else. When my father said about how some Christians opposed to the whole thing, she looked surprised. The first one I met who practiced the faith reacted that! I quickly added that it's some of those conservative Christians who does not like it and she understood. She even said something like 'the more people want to oppose to it, the more people want to watch the movie'. It's true. Given this comes from someone who is a Christian herself.
Because from the start, I know I have to proceed this topic with caution. Who knows what reception I get from those Christians I met. I am more towards a free-thinker person. But then it's like I told my father after we came out of the movie theatre that now it seemed like a blessing in disguise I once attended a missionary school in my primary school days (he was the one who sent me there because of the good English standards he heard and short travelling distance then). I even tried to recall some of the things being raised in the movie with what I remembered from the past school chapel sessions when I was in primary school and it does not seemed bad after all because I have some background knowledge already.
Overall, there were minor changes here and there in the movie and it added things that were not in the novel. The flashback of Robert's childhood was about how he became claustrophobic (I said that softly to my father as we were watching the movie because I did read Angels & Demons as well, and that is where it first mentioned of Robert's childhood fear of small spaces) because when he and Sophie were in the truck, Sophie noticed he looked scared somehow. Then the flashback appeared. Also, look out for the Mickey Mouse watch Robert is wearing in the truck scene. I was aware that was first mentioned in Angels & Demons about Robert used that to keep himself young at heart. I almot giggled when I saw the watch on screen.
Also in the truck, Sophie had said that Sauinere (Robert had asked somewhere in the movie why she kept mentioning her grandfather by his last name only) had once given her a present when she was young (I forgot it now) and Robert replied he only got a wagon when he was a boy. LOL! I know the wagon thing was never mentioned in the book, for sure! I really wondered whether the scriptwriter or Dan Brown himself (given I once read the cast and crew credits on IMBD website that Dan Brown is one of the executive producers) added that in. Anyhow, that is one of those moments the audience laughed. I did too. The time when Robert and Sophie had arrived outside Sir Leigh Teabing's house is another hilarious incident altogether. If one remember in the book for those who read it, Robert took over the control of the wheels from the original driver and he mentioned about Sir Leigh who knows more about the Grail than he does along the way and it was this eccentric (I call him that myself) Teabing who asked the three questions before he could let Robert and Sophie pass. When the whole thing was played out in the movie...hilarious! Another time the audience laughed together including me.
If you watched towards the end of the movie, there were alterations. It was like that too at the start of the movie. Anyone who had read the book will know that. But what finally happens in the end, it was played out like what it almost does in the novel itself. I almost choked up in the end.
It was really magnificent and grand when in between the movie what Robert or Teabing had explained about some of the historical events of the past because some of the things they explained was shown in the movie too. Like about the Crusades, the burial ceremony of Sir Isaac Newton, the burial of Mary Magdalene and so on. Something like that. Grand indeed...like wow! For a past history student and still a history fanatic (yours truly!), I call all those things - fascinating! Events of the past, no matter it's religious or not, I am always eager to know.
Of course for me who had read the book, I knew who was the real murderer behind Sauniere. When Teabing first appeared, my mind was thinking - 'The real murderer has appeared.' I never told my father about this when Teabing made his appearance (can't spoil the fun too early) and I only just told him quietly as we were watching that when they are all in England, everything will be revealed, even about Remy.
When Robert, Sophie and Teabing were trying to figure out the poem that came out of the cryptex inside the Lincoln Cathedral (it's actually being used as a substitute for Westminister Abbey in the novel because I had understood the people in charge of Westminister Abbey did not allow the film crew to film there), all the real action happened there. It was like the real climax! Of course when Teabing revealed himself as the one who had actually planned Sauinere's murder from the start, I still went shocked like I first did when reading the novel. I can never believe and forgive someone who is quite a historian and yet...I don't know now.
The Silas part...when he appeared, it's always scary. Especially when he did the 'corporal mortification' thing, I have to use my jacket to hide myself. Eek! I had always knew why the movie is rated NC-16 (not for children below 16) here. This has to be one of the reasons.
Yeah, it was a little confusing at times in the movie plot, but then unless one has read the book, one will not understand much. *innocent* As the movie progresses, I can point out at once the differences between the novel and the movie. And the alterations are not really so serious, which is good. Anyhow, there's always bound to be differences somewhere from books to movies. It happens in the Harry Potter movies too.
Like what I told my father when we were in the car, people turn to religion to help them seek solace from their problems. And to imagine if Jesus is a family man actually (I am not making generalisation here), how many Christians will be shocked. This is the exact reason why I said time and again I understand how those people feel. Actually, for my family's religion being Buddhism, I do aware that Buddha was once a family man too. So when I told my mother about The Da Vinci Code movie plot days ago, she felt there was nothing really wrong if Jesus is a family man. Maybe given how Buddha was once himself a married man before gaining enlightenment, that's how she view it altogether.
Do I like the movie after it ended? Yes. Do I feel differently about Christianity and the world we live in after that? I do. It's something more or less relevant given the state of the current times. Do I like the overall cast? More or less I'm pleased with it.
I have to state this - I am reviewing the movie from a non-Christian point-of-view, not from someone who had read the book already especially. Need to make myself clear first. Given I have stated very clear about it on my profile (read at your right please).
Overall, I will give the movie like three or three and a half out of five. View the rating at your own risk, folks. Like as if I don't know the how press reviews are like so far. Real audience always do matter!
