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Daily News
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Da Vinci Drags Down Cannes
For journalists gathered on the French Riviera, the real mystery is why Da Vinci Code director Ron Howard insisted on cracking the two-and-a-half hour mark.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 3:45 PM
By J. Sperling Reich
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Columbia Pictures
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Planes, trains and Achilles heel?
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With the cast and filmmakers of The Da Vinci Code making their way from London to Cannes today via the longest ever non-stop high-speed international train journey, an early press screening of tomorrow night's highly anticipated opening night gala presentation may have already derailed their good intentions.
As the film screened this evening in Cannes for journalists packed into the Debussy Theater, the feeling moved quickly from one of great anticipation to one of, shockingly, great boredom. Ron Howard knows how to ratchet up the tension in a movie; witness Apollo 13 and Backdraft. But here, instead of the film building to a white knuckle conclusion, it was the audience fidgeting as Da Vinci passed the two-hour mark and unveiled the first of its half-dozen endings. So much so that by the time the big climactic moment of the film finally arrived, the audience burst out laughing, as if this were yet another classic bit of Tom Hanks comedy. As the credits rolled, not a single bit of applause was heard.
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Columbia Pictures
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Author Brown, adapter Howard
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Afterwards, as critics from around the world poured out of the Debussy, they were swarmed by two dozen camera crews looking, finally, for the first whiff of reaction to the long-awaited adaptation of Dan Brown's mega-bestseller. Used to being on the other side of the camera, these members of the Fifth Estate could only shake their heads in astonishment, complaining about how many times Hanks and Tautou seemed to conveniently avoid capture by French police. Or, how a majority of the two-and-a-half-hour film seemed to be about endless historical exposition, most of which was presented so fast that in the end it seemed to confuse rather than enlighten the audience.
It's safe to say that most of this Friday's reviews of The Da Vinci Code will deem the flick a disaster. Critics from large U.S. media outlets were overheard tonight in Cannes calling the film a “snore”, a “bore” and giving it an Ebert & Roeper-worthy big thumbs down.
With Sony and Columbia Pictures having been so careful with their handling of the film prior to this week, it's unclear why they decided to present the 2006 Cannes Film Festival opening night gala to the press a day early, rather than the day-of. As journalists arrived in the south of France today to pick up their accreditations and festival badges, Da Vinci was being whispered with giddy excitement by just about everyone. Nothing gets tongues wagging around Cannes like a star-studded Hollywood popcorn flick, especially when the studio behind the film hasn’t shown it to anyone back in the U.S. So the anticipation may well have been over tomorrow night's red carpet appearances by Tom Hanks and local heroes Jean Reno and Audrey Tautou.
Still, in a matter of just a few hours, The Da Vinci Code has gone from generating a long line-up of eager journalists to sparking discussions about the last time such a high-profile American film in Cannes offered up such low-yield results.
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