Joe's Movie Reviews

Thursday, June 01, 2006

A Tale Of Two Toms



1. "The Da Vinci Code". Here's the pointless part (assuming that ALL the parts of these reviews aren't pointless): the part where I explain the premise of a movie that is known even to the dozen or so people who haven't read the book (I was one of those people until about two days before I saw the film). It seems that there is a secret about the origins of Christianity that could cause disaster to the Church if revealed, and certain parties... including those with close ties to the Catholic Church... will do anything, including kill, to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, a "symbologist" and an officer of the French police are racing to both uncover that secret and avoid the pursuit of French officials after them for a murder they didn't commit.

Okay, so much for the TV Guide summary. Now, for the controversy. For the record, I am on the one hand not a member of any organized religion (so I do not have any great emotional investment in whether the traditional doctrines are or are not true) and on the other I do not for one second believe that a single aspect of Dan Brown's novel is anything other than complete, 100 percent fiction. It's not true, folks: he made it all up. ALL of it. So I'm approaching this story not as a Dan Brown disciple praising him for uncovering the truth, or attacking him as a heretic. I'm just interested in this film as a movie like any other.

So, I guess that's all. Oh, what did you say? You want to know if the movie was any good? Oh, yeah, I guess I did forget to mention that, didn't I? Well, actually, in spite of what more than 3/4 of the nation's professional critics have said... yeah, I do think it was a decent movie. Not a great cinematic achievement, mind you... no Oscar-winner, no classic for the ages. But in a time when Hollywood often seems incapable of producing quality movies even in the commercial summer action blockbuster mode that is supposed to be their strength, "The Da Vinci Code" provides 2 1/2 hours of entertaining fun (I was going to say "uncomplicated" fun but that's not exactly accurate) at the movies, and manages the difficult task of turning a 489 page book into a 149 minute movie with most of its significant points intact. There's nothing to be ashamed of about a well-made "popcorn movie", and that's what we have here.

Tom Hanks strikes me as a quite believable as an unconventional action hero who instead of running for an arsenal to grab a bunch of guns, exclaims "We've got to get to a library... fast!" (a great line). Paul Bettany, who has rarely been sinister in his previous roles (other than "Firewall") is marvelously creepy as the albino monk assassin Silas. And of course Ian McKellen is as wonderful as always in the role of Sir Leigh Teabing (a Grail scholar who aids Hanks in his quest). Audrey Tatou is perhaps a little weak as the French officer along for the quest, but at least the role is well-written and not just your typical female who's only there for some vague romantic interest. The movie manages to make a series of tricky puzzles in several languages (numeric codes, too) the center of an action movie and succeeds quite well.

Not that everything about the film is perfect, understand. Certainly veteran film composer Hans Zimmer could easily have toned down his musical score by a factor of ten and it still might have been too melodramatic. And yes, sometimes the dialogue does get a little hard to swallow. But approached fromas objective a standpoint as there can be, going into the movie with no "agenda" of any kind, it seems to me that "The Da Vinci Code" is something that, Spider Man and Jason Bourne aside, is becoming increasingly difficult to find: a summer Hollywood movie that provides a few hours of effective escapism and is actually worth coming in out of the nice warm weather for. Of course, this puts me in an extremely small minority position. But as someone who voted for George McGovern in his first election, I'm used to that. Ron Howard doesn't have a perfect track record ("The Grinch", anyone?) but even though this film is no "Apollo 13" (to my mind, his best) it's still one he should be pleased to be able to put on his resume.

2. "Mission: Impossible III". From the not quite sublime to the genuinely ridiculous. I'm pleased to say that I'm not part of the recent Tom Cruise backlash: with an occasional exception ("Born On The 4th Of July", "Magnolia", "Collateral") I've never found him to be much more than a typically shallow and self-involved pretty-boy type. The man can act, but rarely bothers to. So my expectations for "Mission: Impossible III" weren't tremendously high, especially since the first two films in the series were directed by genuine talents (Brian DePalman and John Woo) while this third film is the directorial debut of TV director J.J. Abrams. Even with diminished expectations, however, it still managed to disappoint.

The story? Well, i suppose there was one, kind of. Cruise's Ethan Hunt is now semi-retired and only TRAINS agents for the IMF. But a mission he can't refuse involving the disappearance of one of those trainees brings him back into the field, and up against a sinister villain out to obtain a potentially world-destroying device called "The Rabbit's Foot". Simple, basic stuff compared to the labarynthine twists and turns of the first two movies, which is a point in its favor. That's pretty much the only aspect of the movie that is, however.

Cruise, as usual, sleepwalks through every scene, including the big action and stunt sequences. Abrams tends to cast the supporting roles with non-movie caliber tv performers he's worked with in the past, such as Keri Russell and Michelle Monaghan. And when he does use a genuine actor, such as Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the principal villain, he winds up appearing to have "Tom Cruise Sleepwalking Disease" and gives a performance that you would never connect with the guy who's starred in films like "Capote". The one
bright exception to this is Laurence Fishburne, who gives his role as the current head of the IMF a surprising degree of complexity and believability. However, the role is so small that he doesn't really have a chance to offset the effect of all the rest of the sub-par cast.

The film can't even get us worked up or excited about the explosions and stunts. Each time some chase or action sequence starts you only wind up remembering another scene in one of the first two movies that was just like it. The one time in the film I saw something different... a genuinely exciting scene in which Cruise slides down the outside of a very steep glass tower... I very briefly got my hopes up, until it occurred to me how much more I had enjoyed the very same stunt when I first saw Jackie Chan do it about six years ago in his movie "Who Am I?". The comparison does not do Cruise any favors.

In spite of all the news reports about the supposed box office disappointment of this film, the fact remains that it made almost $50 million on its opening weekend and there will most likely be a fourth title in the franchise. But after seeing the downturns the series has taken in this installment, the mind boggles as to how it could go further down next time out. Perhaps it could be written and directed by a first-time feature director who had only made COMMERCIALS before, and star Rob Schneider as the villain with Jenny McCarthy as the love interest? You know, there are times I'm glad that nobody is actually reading this stuff... I wouldn't want to give them any ideas...

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