The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code Date: na   —   DVD / VHS product page Rating:

Perhaps the best thing about this movie--the thing, in fact, that makes it an absolutely wonderful thing for this movie to have been made--is that it gives old people something to do, gets them out of the house for some fresh air:

There were three such people outside the theater where we went--they were there when we went in and they were there when we came out. And the theater staff said they were there the night before. The thing is, they weren't even doing anything, just standing there with their signs. They weren't shouting slogans, they weren't trying to engage in conversation, they were just standing there showing their probably-under-informed disapproval. I'd be bored out of my mind if I were them, but I guess they've had long lives in which to cultivate patience and righteous indignation over things they're told to be righteously (but quietly) indignant about.

They might have been more effective if they'd been brandishing signs that said: "Reject the Da Vinci Code! It's not even as good as the book, which was only okay! As a thriller, it's not that compelling! As a thinking piece, it's not that thoughtful! Tom Hanks isn't at his best, and attractive French actress Audrey Tautou can't redeem it just by looking sexy and French!"

Those signs might have given me pause before plunking down $5.25 for the show. Instead, I gleefully plunked down my cash with a joke at the protesters' expense.

Contrast: If I read it right, a church sign that I saw on the way home said something far more effective: "The Da Vinci Code: not a mystery, it's fiction." Seems to me that pretty well says it: you're picking up this book in the fiction section, not history or religious studies. Until you've done some research in those sections, you'd be pretty foolish to accept anything in the book as fact or even as reasonable historical conjecture. Now, if you wondered what fueled Dan Brown's speculation and provided a source for the conspiracy-type theories he used as the engine to drive his plot, then it would be a great opportunity to spend some time in history and/or religious studies and find out what scholars know and how various scholars interpret what we know and conjecture about what we don't know. Serious scholars have suggested that Jesus was married and that he was involved in worldly, dynastic messianic ambitions. That doesn't mean it's true, but it might be worth your time to consider the evidence being presented, to understand on what basis this claim is being made and on what basis you are accepting or rejecting it--and how thoroughly you can legitimately do so. When it comes to this sort of scholarship, about the best you can come to is an educated guess--which is, in itself, a vastly different way of approaching these matters than the way religion would have you do so, but also a more honest and tenable one.

So, while I absolutely embrace this church's sign about The Da Vinci Code, I suspect that they will be far less willing to accept my own disclaimers, for instance "The Bible: not a mystery, it's popular mythology." Oh well: live and let live.

tags: movie and tv reviews  "serious"  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit