"Contains spoilers"
The Da Vinci Code movie is essentially an adaptation of the novel – words brought to life with stunning visuals, a Lonely Planet of the book.
Essentially that's the only reason why I decided to watch it.
I read the novel last year. So vivid are the descriptions of the locations that I couldn't resist surfing the Internet for pictures of these places so that I can understand what Dan Brown is trying to tell us. I especially want to see the structures that represent the chalice and the blade at the end of the story, the Temple Church and its "sarcophaguses" (turns out they are just statues) as well as that interesting high-security bank vault where the machine picks out the safe deposit boxes and delivers them to the client using a conveyor system.
The movie is pretty fast-paced, but essentially ends when Teabing gets arrested. I'm a sucker for the speedy, I don't really like slow stuff. The last bit where they go to Roslin Church becomes a documentary about the place and its underground vaults. The dialogue is a drag, I'm better off reading the book.
But I must say: the ending is really stunning. Robert Langdon kneels down at the top of the inverted glass pyramid, representing the chalice. The camera pans down onto the upright pyramid and penetrates through it, goes down into the bowels of the earth, as if there is a vault containing the sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene. In the book, the ending is ambiguous – it ends at the two pyramids in the Lourve and that is it.
If there is ever a documentary to be made about Leonard Bernstein today, I'd say Sir Ian McKellen fits the role, only that he has to look more portly as Bernstein ballooned towards the end of his life.
The air-conditioning at the Cathay Cineplex is very cold, so remember folks, bring a sweater when you go there.
