Review: The Da Vinci Code Movie

I think I have to preface my discussion on the Da Vinci Code with an explanation of my feelings on Christianity. You can find some of my past thoughts on it on my webpage here, how Jesus was an early death penalty victim here, and my thoughts of Jesus' life here. I have a love hate relationship with Jesus having been on both ends of his legacy. On the negative, I have been terrorized and disowned by my family, even beaten in his name. From an early age of 3 I was told by aunts, uncles and cousins that I was going to hell. Told that the legacy of Jesus, is the lesson that everyone must be armed to protect themselves. But I have also felt my spirit lifted and given purpose by Jesus’ life, especially the more I learn about it. Not religiously, but by the man and the guidance of how he lived his life. The lessons of a gifted life lived in the very image of G-d (for Christians obviously as G-d, but as a Jew in the image) a lesson embodied and emulated by Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Dr. King, Mandela, etc. Anyway the Movie, the Da Vinci Code. It was just ok. And that saddens me greatly because for me the movie is so important. For some reason they changed things that didn’t need to be changed, like it didn’t add anything and didn’t shorten the movie… It made no sense. The other major change is that Tom Hanks, who played the main character, Robert Langdon ends up being an advocate for the Catholic Church’s talking points, even disregarding the well documented and researched facts about the founding of the church to make obvious concessions to the Catholic Church. I mean the actual plot of the movie as a thriller moving forward is not that great, why make that the purpose of the movie? As a thriller it is just ok. What makes the Da Vinci Code so unique and so powerful is the important questions it raises about religion the values of all the major western religions while making it very accessible even somewhat interesting. The importance of women, and the subsequent focus on their subjugation and repression as being key to the success of the church is so fascinating and raises important questions for religion and religious feminists (which I have the pleasure of being friends with many) to deal with today. Also the reality of the politicization of Christianity, and that many of the values Christians take for granted if not hold as the very word of G-d were merely decisions of men. And the Gospels, which are the memories of people written down decades after the life of Jesus as his words, and chosen by other people decades later as the ones to keep while disregarding other Gospels by other seemingly equal apostles as their memories of Jesus’ life and words. It seems sad that people are forced to feel subjugated, oppressed, demagogued, dehumanized, even killed based on that. It has bewildered me further, that women, who so obviously should be worshipped and admired places in our society as keepers of life, and often (although obviously not exclusively) the givers of true male pleasure could hold such a demonized place in our society. The Da Vinci Code gave an important avenue for exploring these and many other issues. The movie failed to give these issues a proper airing, if anything the concessions to Church positions without further discussions only shortening them to make it sound like the Church is the final and ultimate RIGHT position just cheapened the point. It could have been so much more and wasn’t… for that I was very disappointed.