The Da Vinci Bomb

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 18, 2006

For the most part, this week has carried a fairly somber tone amongst the Film literati. At least in my opinion, the hype surrounding tomorrow’s release of The Da Vinci Code has evened out a bit. On Monday, most of the talk was centered around how Poseidon almost literally sank at the box office, finishing second to uber-douche bag Tom Cruise’s publicity stunt-fest Mission Impossible III. Tuesday it was much of the same, with more talk about Poseidon and some mixed news ranging from a new Superman Returns poster to the release of the trailer for Oli Stone’s homage to the heroes of 9/11 and their mustaches, World Trade Center.

But then on Wednesday something happened. It was as if everyone in the world stopped and waited for 149 minutes as Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. And now all hell has broken loose as critics are slamming away at this once extremely hyped event. Here are some highlights:

“There’s no code to decipher. Da Vinci is a dud — a dreary, droning, dull-witted adaptation of Dan Brown’s religioso detective story …” ~ Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“The Da Vinci Code may be controversial and even heretical — but worse, still, it’s plodding, tedious, deathly dull.” ~ Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Combine all of this with the fact that it is being banned all over the world and what do you have? This my friends is the death of a great hype! Will this reaction to the film stop people from seeing it? I don’t think so. But it does put an interesting spin on things. So many predicted that this film would explode with even more controversy once released to the public. But now, on the eve of it’s release to the world, Da Vinci seems to be floundering a little. Could this be the product of too much hype and not enough cinematic brilliance to back it up? Only time will tell.

Click here to check out the reviews as the role in over at Rotten Tomatoes. As for us, we will have a review on the flick sometime tomorrow or Saturday from staff writer Jarvis Mishler.

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