The Da Vinci Code (2006) Review

The movie is 90% faithful to the book. But the biggest problem remains that it cannot duplicate the ability of novel readers to envision whomever they want in the title roles.

Not quite right © Columbia Pictures

It's not often that this thought comes to mind while watching a Tom Hanks movie. But in The Da Vinci Code, the actor is solidly miscast.

The part of master cryptologist Robert Langdon calls for Harrison Ford in his prime, but of course the soon to be 64-year-old actor is well past that now, his dedication to an Indiana Jones 4 notwithstanding. And in fairness to director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, if not for the arduous, he's-in-every-scene shooting schedule of the HBO series Big Love, Bill Paxton - the filmmaker's original choice - would have probably said yes.

So what's the problem here? Is it the infamous hairdo, or "coiffure," as the French have been debating. Not really, although it is indeed rather strange to see Hanks sporting a long, scruffy mane. Rather, like his attempt to stretch in 2004's The Terminal, when the mid-career turning Hanks crams himself into a role with no cheekiness or eye-lighting twinkle, he comes across as rather bland. Such roles suppress his best qualities as a performer.

Also beat out a number of others © Columbia Pictures

In Catch Me If You Can, Hanks' last great film, he was the hunter rather than the hunted that he is from the very beginning of Da Vinci. Di Caprio was the straight man, while Hanks - as a meticulous, misfit workaholic - was funny to almost everyone but himself. And then, as he engaged in a continental game of cat and mouse with his wily prey, he grew to admire, tease and console him.

No such emotional sparks flare up onscreen between Hanks and French actress Audrey Tautou (Amélie). Like a placid big brother and little sister, they march through the paces and as the web of intrigue expands without fully engaging the viewer, you don't buy it for a second. For example, both Langdon's slide show expertise and Sophie Neveu's impeccable daredevil driving skills, presented in a manner reminiscent of 1998's Ronin, ring hollow.

On the other hand, there is no denying the chilling veracity with which Paul Bettany inhabits the part of a self-flagellating, Albino monk. It's tantalizing to imagine what the film might have been like had Russell Crowe, another actor at the top of Howard's list, stepped into Langdon's shoes. Bettany of course offered up an equally ghostly performance opposite Crowe in Howard's more successful 2001 adaptation A Beautiful Mind, and it is only when the Australian actor's clenching character of Silas appears onscreen that Da Vinci has any real feeling of foreboding.

Felonious monk © Columbia Pictures

The other casting standout is Sir Ian McKellen as tea-loving Sir Leigh Teabling. He injects some much needed playfulness into the mountains of expository dialogue that course through the movie's two-and-a-half hours, and as some other critics have already suggested, it is indeed possible that he will score the film's lone Oscar acting nomination come next January.

Faced with the challenge of adapting a bestseller of Biblical proportions, Howard has created a film not nearly as bad as the early Cannes Film Festival reaction might indicate. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that you will never be so handsomely bored.

Howard's one bit of notable visual flourish is the way he rear projects transparent, large-scale historical visuals as the characters played by Hanks, McKellen and others narrate intricate, centuries-old details of the Priory of Scion, the Knights of Templar and so on. A couple of these sequences are in fact breathtaking, and provide a glimpse of what might have been had Howard been able to go further with the look of the modern day portions of his tale.

Early Supporting Actor heat © Columbia Pictures

But of course, he can't. And again, that's not really the problem. The central issue with The Da Vinci Code is one of moviegoing faith, with neither Hanks or Tautou managing to strike any kind of lasting or engaging authenticity. It's more like The Da Vinci costume party, and while Hanks as Langdon pointing out the symbolic irony of the god Poseidon is far easier to take than Richard Dreyfuss bemoaning his gay love life in Poseidon, all eyes now are on Brett Ratner's good buzz Memorial Day offering X-Men: The Last Stand.

Should a third generation of a comic book upend The (Second) Greatest Story Every Told at the Multiplex, it will make for a surprise as sacrilegious in its own way as those contained in Dan Brown's endlessly debated page-turner.