Tonight Laura and I went to see The DaVinci Code.  She was a big fan of the book, and try as I might I’ve been pretty unsuccessfull in “avoiding” all the media about it.  Seems every time I watch TV there’s either a News Story about it, or a special on the Discovery Channel debunking it.  Even without reading the book, I felt like I knew the entire story.

All in all, it’s a pretty good movie.  The story is interesting, albeit pretty flimsy.  Using the “San Greal” vs “Sang Real” trick made popular by Holy Blood, Holy Grail, it starts with an odd museum curator’s murder and turns into a search for the Holy Grail.  Of course, the grail is not a cup but rather the last surviving descendant of Christ.  With the religious aspects aside, the puzzles and connections alone are interesting to any hacker-type.  From the “Cryptex“, to the Rose Line vs the Rosslyn Chapel, to the “Missing Orb” at the tomb of Sir Issac Newton, the story is ripe with riddles and puzzles to keep you guessing.

Of course, it’s hard to talk about the story without getting into the Religious implications and aspects of it all.  Frankly, I’m not gonna bother.  There’s plenty of other stuff out there about it, go read that.  In my mind, it’s a great fictional story. 

But, if you are going to go see the movie, maybe you want to read some of these first (or afterwards, if you don’t like spoilers):

In conclusion, it’s a fun movie.  I didn’t get the whole “changing the world” angle that some people are trying so hard to put into it, but I did enjoy the ride.  Some people seem to be treating this as a factual Research Paper, but it seemed pretty obvious that it’s fiction to me. Tom Hanks did a pretty good job with it, and any movie with a Mini chase scene gets a plus by me.  I loved all the references to DaVinci, although sadly the major one (the Cryptex) was apparently made up for the book.  It’s fun, tho, and I recommend it for that reason alone.  Laura, who’s read the book, said it was surprisingly close to the book, but left a few “treats” for those who had read it (Such as the identity of the stranger watching over the Rosslyn Chapel).
[tag:thedavincicode][tag:movie][tag:davinci]

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