I went to see The Da Vinci Code with some trepidation. I haven't read the book. Ever since it became clear that this was one of those popular novels you essentially had to read, I've been mulishly avoiding it. So I was worried that this would be like a Harry Potter movie, where if you see the movie without reading the book, you'll miss a lot of essential stuff. Plus, the reviews I've read suggested it was slow-paced and dull, plus Tom Hanks wasn't very good in it, plus his hair looked dorky.

So my wife and I saw it on Saturday, and absolutely loved it. The critics I'd read were dead wrong. It's not remotely slow-paced. There's a very complex story that needs to be told, and the film tells that story with economy and dispatch, intelligently and thoughtfully, without lingering on unnecessary or uninteresting details. Ron Howard is a solid craftsman. He's not a brilliant director, and he's not groundbreaking stylistically or thematically. What he is, is competent. I've seen enough Michael Bay movies and Brett Ratner movies to really value good old-fashioned Hollywood competence. I also thought that Akiva Goldman's screenplay was tremendous--I admire his ability to condense what I'm told is a very complex story into a two hour movie with that kind of clarity and intelligence. And Tom Hanks is fine. He gets to say the single silliest movie line since "Luke, I am your father," and he says it with great earnestness and conviction. And there's a moment late in the film where he describes his own faith and why he believes in God that I found very moving and powerful. At the end, my wife said 'I don't believe any part of this movie, except maybe that Jesus was married, which I don't know one way or the other, but which doesn't bother me. But I still enjoyed it.'

So The Da Vinci Code is something that's becoming quite rare, a solid bit of craftsmanship, a well-made Hollywood movie. But I also think I know why so many critics didn't like it, why it got such a tepid response. It's a solid, well-made movie. What it isn't, is cool.

A couple of years ago, Nicolas Cage starred in essentially the same movie as The Da Vinci Code; a thriller called National Treasure. In both movies, the premise was essentially preposterous--an historian searching for some hidden treasure, with clues derived from major historical/cultural icons. As it happens, I don't actually believe that there's a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, any more than I believe that clues to the location of the Holy Grail are found in Da Vinci's Last Supper. The idea, in both cases, is ridiculous, but also ridiculously entertaining. But in National Treasure, there's a scene where Nicolas Cage is explaining his theory to the National Archivist (a position filled, as is, I think, mandated by the Constitution, by an attractive young woman.) Anyway, Cage looks crazy in that scene, and what's more, knows it. He even says 'look, I know this sounds crazy, but. . . ' In time, of course, the archivist girl becomes the film's main love interest. (Cage even has an older historian/mentor--Jon Voigt, playing exactly the same role Ian McKellen plays in The Da Vinci Code.)

The point is, National Treasure never takes its story even remotely seriously. The film is based on a ludicrous premise, and it knows it. And it stars Nicolas Cage, a much cooler actor than Tom Hanks. I mean, they're both movie stars, but Cage is really an off-beat, quirky movie star. He's one of those movie stars, like Humphrey Bogart, who projects an anti-heroic image-Jack Nicholson's another one. Whereas Tom Hanks is one of those guys who WAS sort of cool, once upon a time, back when he was doing movies like Big, and Splash, and Joe vs. The Volcano. Not really since Saving Private Ryan, though. Terrific actor, of course, a wonderful actor. Not particularly cool.

Coolness is something fairly undefinable. Some people just aren't cool, and won't ever be cool. Quentin Tarantino is a cool film director--Ron Howard isn't. Jack White is a cool musician (maybe the coolest on the planet), while a much bigger star, Rob Thomas, has sold maybe ten times as many records without ever being cool, not once, not for a second. Watch the Kelly Clarkson video for her song "Walk Away," and see someone who'll never get to be cool trying like crazy to be Pink, who in turn is trying probably a little too hard to pull off Madonna levels of coolness. Randy Jackson tries way too hard to be cool, and what's more tragic, thinks he's succeeding, while Simon Cowell manages coolness effortlessly. You can be liberal and cool, like Jon Stewart, and conservative and cool, like P. J. O'Rourke. Barry Bonds is losing coolness, and Derek Jeter is gaining coolness. Al Gore is a bright and competent politician who will never be cool at all, while Bill Clinton was remarkably cool. And of course everyone's trying to match the ultimate master of coolness, Samuel L. Jackson.

National Treasure was cool. The Da Vinci Code is a ten times better movie, but it's not cool. It's earnest, it's thoughtful, it's intelligent, it's craftsmanlike. It's also a little nerdy. It's a movie that has, as a villain, an albino flagellant monk hitman (let me repeat that, an albino flagellant monk hitman), and makes him a deeply disturbed and tragic character. I loved all the scenes with the albino monk hitman. I was very moved by the character and by his story-thread. But isn't that very idea a little, I don't know, over the top? But the movie doesn't think it's weird at all. Albino monks who kill people and then whip themselves? How sad. Poor guy.

This is a movie, after all, that begins with an elderly man getting gutshot, and, while bleeding to death, staggering around the Louvre, going from painting to painting, leaving complex intellectual clues as to who killed him and why and what to do about it. The movie takes that whole bit very seriously, and while watching it, I took it seriously. The tone was all very serious. And of course, Howard HAS to take it seriously. He can't let the tone wobble at all. If we acknowledge the essential ridiculousness of any part of the Da Vinci narrative, the whole thing will deconstruct at a rate that would dizzy Derrida.

That's the problem with The Da Vinci Code. It's attracted all kinds of serious commentary about the religious implications of the story it's telling, and can Christianity survive its revelations and is it impious, or inflammatory, or insensitive to albinos? What all that masks is that it's an astonishingly silly story; and for that reason, a lot of pop culture fun. But only if you like your fun coached in terms of moral seriousness, which I guess I sort of do, because, as I said, I really really liked it.

A woman walks into a shop and she sees this sweater, and she asks the price, and the shopkeeper tells her, "a thousand dollars." "What?" she says, amazed, "Why so much?" "Ah," says the shopkeeper, "this isn't just an ordinary sweater. This is made from wool taken only from the bellies of female Himalayan mountain sheep. Specially trained Sherpas only sheer the sheep during two special days in the early spring, when it's at its fullest and richest. They then hand carry it through Nepal to a special dyer in India, who uses 81 different herbs and dyes to process the wool into a very special yarn. You see, that's why the sweater costs so much. It's really a wonderful yarn." "Yes it is," replies the woman. "And you tell it so well."

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Eric Samuelsen
May 30, 2006