I finished reading the DaVinci Code on Wednesday and saw the movie last night, and both were “Meh.”
The book itself was not written well at all in my opinion (LOTS of passive voice, which just annoys the poo out of me, past tense) and not compelling. I mean… ugh I guess I’ll put this behind a cut because SPOILERS AHEAD OOH.
So in the book it was CONSTANTLY “Hm, what does this mean? Wait, let me just have a convenient flashback to my childhood… ponder… OH YES THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW.” Do you know what I mean? It was just constantly so convenient, it didn’t build to anything. Also I found how they constantly were explaining everything to Sophie really unbelievable. In a high pressure, fast-paced situation, they wouldn’t take the time to explain everything to her. But I guess if they didn’t explain it to her, we wouldn’t know either. The biggest complaint I have about it is the glaring plot hole that is the discovery of the identities of the senechaux and the Grand master. They did say that Teabing had suspicions, but they didn’t go into (not deeply enough for me anyway) if he bugged ALL of those people, then figured out by listening to their conversations who was who, etc. Even that seems highly suspect to me. If the society is so secret, they wouldn’t be talking about it in a public place, like the Louvre in Sauniere’s case.
It was just poorly written in my opinion.
Now the MOVIE! Sweet Lord it was fast-paced. Also they changed things that didn’t make sense to me to change. Like why make Sauniere not Sophie’s real grandfather? That didn’t make sense to me and also made the plot weaker, in my opinion. Also, I was amazed that Mike was able to keep up. It seemed to me that if I hadn’t read the book and known the explanations ahead of time for things, I would be completely lost. But Mike wasn’t. I like how they took the romance out between Sophie and Langdon, that was just stupid in my opinion. They also made Langdon kind of like a father figure at the end. The ending was weird, how they were all acting like she might have power and might be a leader, etc. And how all the Priory members revealed themselves, that was unlikely. Anyway.
My thoughts. 🙂