Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2006-05-30 07:32 am
rionaleonhart) wrote2006-05-30 07:32 am
LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME NOW
So. The Da Vinci Code.
I'll grant that I was already pretty set against this film when I walked into the cinema, because I didn't like the book. I didn't like the fact that the plot was clearly a thin veil for propaganda, I didn't like the lectures in which Dan Brown flaunted his knowledge through Robert Langdon and had the students gasp and clasp their hands in sparkly-eyed admiration, I didn't like the clumsy writing style:
Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
This is the third sentence. The third sentence of the book. At this point we haven't been told that there is anyone but Saunière around, so surely it would make more sense to use 'he'. BUT NO. WE GET AN EPITHET AND HIS NAME AGAIN. IN THE SAME SENTENCE, WHICH MAKES IT SOUND AS IF THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT MEN INVOLVED. Dude, if you want to 'casually' drop in the fact that he's seventy-six, do it in a way that makes more sense. Please.
Anyway! This ranting about the book is a leadup to my saying that my entire immediate family went to see the film: my mother, father, myself and my two brothers. Of those five people, two had never read the book and three had read it but disliked it.
This begs the question: why on Earth did we go to see it?
The world may never know.
EXCUSE ME SILAS? BLUE EYES? YOU ARE THE WORST ALBINO EVER.
I hope I wasn't the only person who originally thought 'OMG TRIDENT', rather than 'OMG PITCHFORK'. Why are all the people in Robert Langdon's lecture audience Christians? Also, when they see a statue holding a child, do people's minds really automatically jump to the Madonna and Child? I just think 'IT IS A STATUE WITH A BABY LOL'.
I think that what I'm trying to say here is that I know nothing about Christianity. Well, I know that the pitchfork is a symbol of the Devil, but if I see a large three-pronged fork my mind will generally leap to 'trident' unless there's something overtly devilish about it.
Robert Langdon was clearly relying on his audience saying 'OMG IT IS THIS CHRISTIAN SYMBOL THAT IT IS NOT' so he could say 'HA HA NO IT IS NOT YOU STUPID AUDIENCE. LOOK AT ME BEING ALL CLEVER AND PATRONISING'. I hated that in the book, and I hated it here. I wish one of them had said 'it's a trident!', because I'd have liked to see his reaction to a member of his audience actually being right, God forbid.
That car crash damn near gave me a heart attack. HATE YOU FILMMAKERS HATE YOU SO MUCH. (It didn't help that, on the way home, my dad had to brake sharply in order to avoid hitting a squirrel. YEARS OFF MY LIFE.)
I also started (although not nearly so badly) when Silas suddenly attacked in Teabing's house, but the row behind us cracked up laughing, and so of course we couldn't help laughing when he suddenly attacked Sophie in the church.
Sophie had much more chemistry with Silas than with Langdon. A Sophie/Silas plot would have made the whole thing so much better and also on-crack. (Sophie was generally a tiny bit incredibly useless, wasn't she? I'm sure she did a little more than stand around and look pretty in the book.)
I rather liked Teabing the Mad Old Englishman (of course he's evil! He's British! Ah, the curse of having a vaguely scheming, sinister accent), even if I was having confusing thoughts of House at his limping and Awesome Cane Attack. There was a collective snigger in the cinema during that 'LOOK AT ME, I'M BRITISH. BRITISH BRITISH BRITISH. I LIKE TEA AND HATE COFFEE AND KEEP MY COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD AND AM PROUD OF THE ROWING PROWESS OF OXFORD. BRITISH.' scene.
I wonder whether there are lots of mad Da Vinci fans taking pickaxes to that place in the Louvre.
Random things said after the film:
Alison (mother): I really enjoyed that!
Alaric (father): ...really?
Alison: It was much better than other films I've seen lately. I was hooked.
Alaric: When that guy said 'thank God this bullshit is over' in the middle, I thought that was it.
Alison: I thought it was rather sweet that they found that mad albino monk a 'safe house' in which to flagellate himself.
Joseph (brother): Well, the book was written to be adapted into a film, wasn't it? I mean, it had a British bad guy -
Alison: He wasn't a bad guy! Was he?
Entire Family: ...
This entire entry was totally just an excuse to use my 'shut up dan brown' tag.
I'll grant that I was already pretty set against this film when I walked into the cinema, because I didn't like the book. I didn't like the fact that the plot was clearly a thin veil for propaganda, I didn't like the lectures in which Dan Brown flaunted his knowledge through Robert Langdon and had the students gasp and clasp their hands in sparkly-eyed admiration, I didn't like the clumsy writing style:
Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
This is the third sentence. The third sentence of the book. At this point we haven't been told that there is anyone but Saunière around, so surely it would make more sense to use 'he'. BUT NO. WE GET AN EPITHET AND HIS NAME AGAIN. IN THE SAME SENTENCE, WHICH MAKES IT SOUND AS IF THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT MEN INVOLVED. Dude, if you want to 'casually' drop in the fact that he's seventy-six, do it in a way that makes more sense. Please.
Anyway! This ranting about the book is a leadup to my saying that my entire immediate family went to see the film: my mother, father, myself and my two brothers. Of those five people, two had never read the book and three had read it but disliked it.
This begs the question: why on Earth did we go to see it?
The world may never know.
EXCUSE ME SILAS? BLUE EYES? YOU ARE THE WORST ALBINO EVER.
I hope I wasn't the only person who originally thought 'OMG TRIDENT', rather than 'OMG PITCHFORK'. Why are all the people in Robert Langdon's lecture audience Christians? Also, when they see a statue holding a child, do people's minds really automatically jump to the Madonna and Child? I just think 'IT IS A STATUE WITH A BABY LOL'.
I think that what I'm trying to say here is that I know nothing about Christianity. Well, I know that the pitchfork is a symbol of the Devil, but if I see a large three-pronged fork my mind will generally leap to 'trident' unless there's something overtly devilish about it.
Robert Langdon was clearly relying on his audience saying 'OMG IT IS THIS CHRISTIAN SYMBOL THAT IT IS NOT' so he could say 'HA HA NO IT IS NOT YOU STUPID AUDIENCE. LOOK AT ME BEING ALL CLEVER AND PATRONISING'. I hated that in the book, and I hated it here. I wish one of them had said 'it's a trident!', because I'd have liked to see his reaction to a member of his audience actually being right, God forbid.
That car crash damn near gave me a heart attack. HATE YOU FILMMAKERS HATE YOU SO MUCH. (It didn't help that, on the way home, my dad had to brake sharply in order to avoid hitting a squirrel. YEARS OFF MY LIFE.)
I also started (although not nearly so badly) when Silas suddenly attacked in Teabing's house, but the row behind us cracked up laughing, and so of course we couldn't help laughing when he suddenly attacked Sophie in the church.
Sophie had much more chemistry with Silas than with Langdon. A Sophie/Silas plot would have made the whole thing so much better and also on-crack. (Sophie was generally a tiny bit incredibly useless, wasn't she? I'm sure she did a little more than stand around and look pretty in the book.)
I rather liked Teabing the Mad Old Englishman (of course he's evil! He's British! Ah, the curse of having a vaguely scheming, sinister accent), even if I was having confusing thoughts of House at his limping and Awesome Cane Attack. There was a collective snigger in the cinema during that 'LOOK AT ME, I'M BRITISH. BRITISH BRITISH BRITISH. I LIKE TEA AND HATE COFFEE AND KEEP MY COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD AND AM PROUD OF THE ROWING PROWESS OF OXFORD. BRITISH.' scene.
I wonder whether there are lots of mad Da Vinci fans taking pickaxes to that place in the Louvre.
Random things said after the film:
Alison (mother): I really enjoyed that!
Alaric (father): ...really?
Alison: It was much better than other films I've seen lately. I was hooked.
Alaric: When that guy said 'thank God this bullshit is over' in the middle, I thought that was it.
Alison: I thought it was rather sweet that they found that mad albino monk a 'safe house' in which to flagellate himself.
Joseph (brother): Well, the book was written to be adapted into a film, wasn't it? I mean, it had a British bad guy -
Alison: He wasn't a bad guy! Was he?
Entire Family: ...
This entire entry was totally just an excuse to use my 'shut up dan brown' tag.