The Da Vinci Code - Preview

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Rated: PG-13

Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Release Date: 2006-05-19

Starring: Tom Hanks (Robert Langdon), Ian McKellan (Sir Leigh Teabing), Alfred Molina (Bishop Aringarosa), Jean Reno (Bezu Fache), Audrey Tautou (Sophie Neveu), Paul Bettany (Silas the Albino)

Directed by Ron Howard

Produced by John Calley, Brian Grazer

Written by Akiva Goldsman

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Previewed by Josh Tyler : 2006-05-06 15:42:24

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others. In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The book that everyone owns and no one has read becomes the movie that everyone is excited about and can't tell you why. The best selling novel, The DaVinci Code comes to movie screens under the perennially Oscar contending power of Ron Howard and Tom Hanks.

While a few disturbed individuals still believe the book is fact, it’s undeniably a work of fiction, and apparently a pretty good one if Howard is making something out of it. Ron has proven himself repeatedly as a master director, and after his Oscar win for A Beautiful Mind his position seems more than ever solidified. Though I’d be little interested in this project on its own, Howard and Hanks gives it a kind of validity it couldn’t have achieved on its own. Sure, it’s a blatant Hollywood cash in on the popularity of the book (kind of like an adult Harry Potter) but with such great people involved it’ll be a high quality cash in. I can live with that.

The premise is basically this: An expert in religious symbols, Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summoned to the Louvre only to discover he’s a prime suspect in the murder of a historian. With the help of a French cryptographer (Audrie Tautou) Langdon is forced to play Encyclopedia Brown, uncovering a string of cryptic codes and puzzles while staying a step ahead of the cops. At some point, Langdon flies through the cracks in the Mona Lisa, then opens the Ark of the Covenant so it can eat his enemies faces off while he hunts for Templar gold underneath a church.

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