HOT: Da Vinci Code

I can remember back in 2003 (possibly 2004) when this book came out and it was all of the rage. Everyone I knew was reading it and they kept telling me that I would love it - it would be right up my ally.

As you can expect I never read the book. The last non-biography, sports book I even tried to read was the first Harry Potter book and that was on my honeymoon. As I've said in the past - if the book is good enough it will eventually be a movie - and I was right.

Tom Hanks stars as Robert Langdon in Da Vinci Code. Langdon is a symbologist who is summoned to a murder. Hidden at the murder scene are clues as to the murderer and the reason for the murder.

He is overseen by Capt. Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) and is helped by French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou).

To say this is a hard film (book) to explain is an understatement. In essence Langdon and Neveu pretty much find and follow clues that show that the bible and most of what the Catholic church follows turns out to be a lie - with examples of Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and a female writing one of the gospels.

Bishop Manuel Aringarosa (Alfred Molina) and his albino monk Silas (Paul Bettany) will do anything - including murder - to protect the teachings of the Catholic church and track down the 'keystone' which is a clue to the final resting place of Magdalene.

So, as if Neveu and Langdon don't have enough to worry about - they are out searching for clues that are hundreds of years old, and hoping to figure those clues out, being followed and hounded by Fache and the French police, and a murderous albino monk is also chasing them down.

However, Langdon reaches out to an old friend Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who has spent most of his life studying the 'lost' pieces of the bible and the life of Jesus. He helps them capture the albino monk - and elude the police in order to complete their mission ... for long enough.

Would I have liked this book? Absolutely. I really enjoyed this movie, especially the first time I saw it. And, I am glad I waited to watch the movie - they even got my favorite actor for the lead role.

I love this sort of thing - symbols, clues, etc. and to do it with a subject matter as off-limits as religion and the Catholic church in general has been is outstanding.

I am not as 'educated' as Hanks' character or Teabing's character to even know what the name of many of the paintings or books they are speaking about. But showing the clues that are in these work - whether real or perceived - I found absolutely interesting.

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Theater Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Well, I saw this film the day after I saw Les Misérables and I am now almost two months after the fact. Seriously lacking in my review time - again.

Anyway, I boned up for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey by watching the original Lord of the Rings trilogy over a few nights. It had been a long time since I had watched them - I find them more to be one single movie instead of three, so watching one really is not an option.

But, it also reminded me just how frustrating the films being cut up into three can be. This especially happens during The Two Towers where it is pretty much just the middle part of a film - no real beginning and no real ending.

So, I was sort of prepared (unlike a few of the other theater dwellers in my showing) that this movie could again have an ending that felt flat - and I was right.

Anyway, this set of films follows a Hobbit with the last name Baggins - heard it before? Of course - but this isn't about Frodo, this is about Bilbo and it happens many, many years prior to Frodo's adventure.

Bilbo (Martin Freeman) is even more reluctant to head out on this journey than Frodo was for his. He is visited by Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a slew of dwarfs to become their 'burglar' to retake the dwarfs' mountain that was stolen from them by the evil dragon, Smaug.

The rest of the film is a lot of what we have seen before in a bit of a different way - we see trolls, goblins and, of course, Orcs. Then it finishes with a shot of what we can expect to be a lot more of in the second film.

Did I like it? Absolutely. I now know that I can not really judge these films on one portion - because like I said at the start - this is really one epic film broken into three parts. So, I must wait - but I still need to give this portion a grade, don't I?

A lot of this is familiar, which is a good thing. But, I did find myself longing from characters of old - I was even excited when I saw Frodo, who was probably the least likable character in all of the Lord of the Rings. But, we are able to spend most of our time with Gandalf - and Bilbo is not that bad - but I am still getting to know the dwarfs, there are just so many of them and I look forward to learning about their personalities - if I ever get to.

Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli had such great chemistry in the first three films - and I may have been looking for that a little during this first film. But, we did get some familiar faces like Frodo, Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond, Galadriel and, of course, Gollum.

I definitely look forward to the next two installments, and although frustrating that I still feel incomplete - this was a great first start to this series.

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