DaVinci Code

So, I went to see the movie on opening weekend. Saw it at a matinee (although, I wouldn't have been disappointed had I paid full price).

I read the book. And, as usual, movies aren't as good as their books. There's just so much more detail in books. And the mind, of course, is the greatest director, as well as cameraman, if only in the imagination. That said, the movie was pretty good. The action moved along fairly well. The plot was a bit jumpy at times, but that's largely due to the director trying to piece together an otherwise fairly complicated and technical plot. Lots of information included in the book had to be omitted for brevity sake. (But, at 2 hours 29 minutes, it's hard to refer to the movie as brief.)

Anyway, the movie is certainly good enough for a summer romp and is worth seeing.

What I'm more pleased with is this: First of all, nut-job Tom Cruise's movie, MI:III had an opening weekend of less than $50M. DaVinci Code opened at well over $200M, and was the second highest opening weekend gross of all time (second only to Star Wars, Episode 3). You won't be seeing a review of MI:III... I refuse to see it.

Secondly, and most importantly, I find it very entertaining to see how right-wing religious nut-jobs (that word works yet again), steeped in intollerance and unable to countenance even the slightest challenge or comment to their particular brand of blind religion zealotry, are appalled at the mere suppositions raised in the movie, to wit, that Jesus, while on Earth, may have had a mortal life... I won't go into details to avoid any spoilers for the movie.

But here's the thing: Dan Brown has been interviewed (many times) and has commented that his intent with the book was to get people thinking and talking about religion. (It worked.) "What if some aspects of the Bible are equally as ficticious as his book?" he asserts.

And, if the movie is total bunk, as many G-Fearin' folk would say, then why draw more attention to it by condemning it so publicly? All you're doing is making more people want to see the movie, to see what the fuss is all about. (However, based on the book sales, it would appear that most of the world read the book.)

Anyway, the movie raises some very interesting and apparently unresolved "issues" about the provenance of various bible stories...err, gospels -- namely, which ones were intentionally excluded/included and why. The controversy has certainly challenged my thinking and encouraged me to do research.

If your faith is so fragile as to be shattered (or even threatened) by a mere movie, sounds like there's a problem...