Monday, May 22, 2006

Il Codice Da Vinci

This is my first movie in Italian language, and one of my eagerly awaited movies. After reading the novel and visualising most of the scenes on the cast, I wanted to verify my imaginations with the directors interpretations on the screen. The problem with movies which are adapted from novels is that people have read the book before and hence know the plot in detail. So that takes away any thrill or suspense in the plot. Moreover while reading people visualise the story according to their imaginations and most of the time they are not satisfied with the directors adaption in the movie. In my opinion, only the Lord of the Rings triology stands out for exact interpretation of the screenplay according to the book. The screenplay of Peter Jackson comes very close to Tolkiens fantasy. I was once an avid reader of Alistair MacLeans novels. Personally for me, notable among his work was Where Eagles Dare. But when I saw the Movie adaptation of it (starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton), I was not quite satisfied with the direction of Brian Hutton.

Well anyways, Da Vinci Code stands between ok and good reviews. Personally to me the casting was the best part of the movie. I couldnt have imagined Robert Langdon to be much different from Tom Hanks ( his hairstyle was a little odd though! ), Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellen fit the bill for Sophie and Leigh Teabing perfectly. Though there are several differences in the movie from the book (for instance, only one cryptex is shown, there is no second cryptex inside the first. In the novel, Robert and Sophie go to a library in London to discover the relevance of A. Pope, while in the movie they borrow a cell phone web browser on a city bus). More or less the movie is deserves one watch, cannot be recommended for repeated viewing.

Personally I would prefer Angels and Deamons anytime over this novel for its thrills and plot.I hope that it is also adapted into a movie some day.

1 comment:

Nada said...

i have to agree with you that as a book - i preferred angels and demons overall to da vinci code which got repetitive after a point i thought.
very few movies are as good as the books. perhaps gone with the wind is one such rare example. but im the freak whos read "jaws" and ian flemings bond books instead of seeing the movies...