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DaVinci
Code: Second-Rate Hitchcock Meets Art Appreciation for Dummies Once I believed, whereas now I can no longer call myself a believer. This movie has destroyed my faith…in Tom Hanks’s ability to be funny. It wasn’t long ago that the Academy Award winning actor could split sides and charm audiences with his Everyman qualities, but now it seems he’s taking himself way too seriously. A little bit of that old Bachelor Party Tom might have livened up The DaVinci Code. The film borrows from
Hitchcock by casting Hanks as an innocent man wrongly accused
and on the run. You wouldn’t know Ron Howard, who has worked
his way up from Roger Corman’s exploitation factory to the
much-honored Russell Crowe vehicle A Beautiful Mind, but lacks
a distinct style, directed this film. Aside from brother Clint’s
cameos in most of his movies, it’s difficult to find a trademark
in any of Howard’s films. With all the flashbacks in The
DaVinci Code, you’d swear the people who make television’s
Cold Case directed it. Instead of the kooky riddles of Code, it
might be more challenging to take a look at the Ron Howard filmography
and look for “clues” about where the former Opie Cunningham
is coming from. My favorite Howard film is the Steve Martin comedy
Parenthood because it’s the most personal. There is also some interesting art appreciation for dummies, courtesy of Ian McKellen, the one actor in this film who really seems to have sunk his teeth into his role. The old guy actually has fun. As Hanks’ running buddy, Amelie’s Audrey Tautou demonstrates an acceptable grasp of the English language. And when you set your thriller in France, it’s always good to have Jean Reno on hand, because he can speak French convincingly and appear menacing and tender at the same time. Alfred Molina, perhaps best known as “Doc Ock” from Spider-Man 2, is effective as an Opus Dei priest, while deranged monk Paul Bettany really throws himself into his self-flagellation sequences. But Hanks looks puffy and bored. Again, I give the filmmakers their propers for taking this hooey and shaping it into a mildly enjoyable diversion. The DaVinci Code comes up short on “Wow!” moments but also spares us a lot of “Yeah, right!” bits. But when you start taking on the whole spectrum of faith—even if it’s only “entertainment”—you really need to have your heart in it. Howard and company merely do a job—a decent one and not much more. Bottom Line:
Professional Hollywood filmmaking at its not-baddest. |
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The
Last Chapter of X-Men In X-Men: The Last Stand, a pharmaceutical company has created a “cure” for human mutation, a serum that inhibits the x-gene that causes mutant powers. While a few mutants embrace the opportunity to be a normal human again, most of them take great offense. The level of offense varies — those aligned with Professor X are leery, but want to protect human life at all costs. Those allied with Magneto, militant and suspicious at the best of times, see it as a call to war. To make matters more complicated, Jean Grey, who seemed to die at the end of the last movie, returns in a way that can only be explained by a shrug and “Well, it is based on comic books.” Her resurrection carries a price — she’s ten times more powerful than she used to be, and an amoral psychotic to boot. She allies with Magneto and the mutant revolution. As their faction views regular humans as an inferior form of life anyway, they have no qualms about eliminating the greatest threat mutant-kind has ever faced, which naturally means large, complex battles and neat fight scenes. X-Men has more in the way of broad social metaphors than most action movie franchises, but the higher-minded think bits have never held them back from having great and varied ass-kicking. The fights are as good as they ever have been – that is, fast and mighty with myriad funny little interjections and a hundred mutant cameos. However, this being the last film of the series, the stakes are higher. Unlike the first two, no one is safe, including main characters that have been with the story the entire time. Some die, and some are hit with the anti-mutant serum, making them mere ordinary humans. In the film, this seems like a fate worse than death. It’s enough to give mere mortals an inferiority complex. There was a lot that had to be crammed into this film. The comics have been going for decades, spawning spin-offs and new characters all along. Even wrapping up the characters and relationships from the last two movies was no small feat. There are a few things shoved to the side, such as the occasional thwarted romantic tension, or the odd unsentimental death of an old favorite, but mostly the haste translates to a rapid, breathless pace and a ruthlessness that the first two movies couldn’t afford to engage in. Only at the end does the exertion of the final stretch catch up with the film. It concludes in a way that is altogether too tidy and calm. Yes, extraneous threads must be purged for the silver screen, and a trilogy demands a solid ending. However, the result of the film’s eponymous last stand, and the logical conclusion of the political fights that have been the X-Men series’ grounding quality since minute one, can’t weave into a clean end. The end—a true resolution to human/mutant misunderstandings—does seem in sight. But without a subtitle telling us that years have passed, the orderly way this series ends seems too easy, especially as one of the great things about it was its characters never quite had it all together anyway. Bottom line: a fine epigraph for the series. |
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