The Da Vinci Code -- 2006 -- PG-13

I finally got a load of this film after months of hearing little bits here and there about it as well as the big "controversy" surrounding the storyline. It's based on the Dan Brown novel of the same name and follows the trials of a pair of secret societies and the regular people who get caught up in them.

The backstory of this whole thing is not the creation of Dan Brown, but something that has existed for centuries. It is the belief that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene, and at the time of his crucifixion, she was pregnant with their child. They assert that the church that canonized the Bible in 300AD did everything they could to weed out any reference to Jesus and Mary having any kind of relationship beyond a platonic one, and use only the scriptures that emphsize his divinity over mortality.

What is my opinion on this idea? Well, I am a Christian and do believe in the Bible as the inspired word of God. Whether or not Jesus was married and had a child with Mary Magdalene does not change anything else that happened. He understood more than anyone what he was doing, and since he never sinned, this would mean that any marriage he may have had would have been sanctioned by God. Frankly, I find the existence or lack thereof to be irrelevant to the overall story and importance of Jesus, so I attach very little importance to the truth or fiction of this idea.

So, moving on to the film. What we have here is kind of like National Treasure in that we're gathering clues and hunting for solutions. It uses existing artifacts and information to open up a world beneath it that people don't know exists. There's a lot of cleverness in here that draws you into the story and makes you wonder where it's going to go next. Throw in some reversals and you have a well plotted film.

The characters were fairly well drawn and understandable. The villains were not necessarily evil, but doing what they felt was right to them. The protagonists were also doing what they felt was right. This works a lot better than just being evil.

Off the top of my head, I wasn't distracted by anything in this film and it worked real well from beginning to end. The subject matter was definitely different, but not too distracting. So watching this one is not a waste of time.