Solemplex
To me, this movie is perfection.
Exoticalot
People are voting emotionally.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Kris Ashton (kris-149)
If you're not one of the 450 trillion* people who have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, for the purposes of this review you should know that it is an adventure/thriller in the tradition of The Celestine Prophecy that unearths a conspiracy theory surrounding the church and the falsification of history, specifically Jesus Christ's mantle as the only son of God. Some of Brown's book is based in fact, and it's this which documentary Cracking the Da Vinci Code sets out to explore.An interesting premise soon turns to farce as a bunch of unwashed intellectuals make fanciful interpretations of Leonardo Da Vinci's artworks, then move beyond the borders of common sense by claiming the carved cubes in a Scottish church might actually be a code that unlocks the truth about the Christian religion. It's so wacky, you almost expect them to burst out laughing – but nope, they're deadly serious. Adding insult to idiocy, the Yank narrator mispronounces "Thames" and "Edinburgh". It's entirely possible that Christianity was adulterated somewhere along the line for nefarious purposes, but this undergraduate fairy story takes us no closer to discovering the truth – or anything else.*This may not be the exact number, but it's probably pretty close.
Storm_Mickche
"Cracking the Da Vinci Code" is just like every other one of those documentaries on the so called controversial book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. This documentary takes you to all the places mentioned in the book and bores the living daylights out of you. I didn't want to hear authors blabbing on about the whole controversy. It's getting annoying. The Worst Part of this Documentary will definitely have to be the expert interviews. I always had to fast-forward past them because i wanted to remain alive after the documentary ended. Simon Ocx has done a poor performance with this and i don't know why i spent $30 on the DVD when i will never watch the stupid thing again.The Only Good Part is seeing the paintings and the buildings. I don't care about what experts say.
keith48322003
I have just seen this, and I can say I know more than I did before watching it. I was curious as to what this Da Vinci code was, and I hadn't read the book/s on the subject, so I thought this would be a good way of finding out. The documentary satisfies this to some degree, but it also falls down in a number of areas.First, the narration: The narrator was very hard to follow, as he often seemed to rush words and paragraphs together, and his pronunciation of place names was incorrect in some places at least. The information conveyed in the narration was not necessarily that helpful or illuminating.Also, the promised contents stated on the blurb of the DVD were somewhat misleading. The Dan Brown "interview" was merely an audio clip of him speaking about his book/the issues - nothing like a face-to-face interview, where the viewer can see the speaker and make some sense of who the person is, and their body language. That said, it was good to hear from the author himself and not merely have him talked about.The documentary speaks to four experts on the subject of Da Vinci and the gnostic connections of the European hidden orders, such as the Knights Templar. There was a subtext here which seemed to imply that those interested in this subject are or should be rebellious or "alternative". Maybe that is a minor point. Again, I have to qualify this and say I was impressed with the seriousness and clarity of points made as the documentary progressed. I was particularly impressed with Dr Hoeller's impressions on the subject.Visually, this program was beautifully done. The locale shots and some of the camera angles/editing seemed to make the work buoyant. The background music was dramatic, perhaps a little too overpowering - moments of silence I think are as valuable to drama and contemplation as a musical presence.Lastly, I think you will get something out of this, but I also recommend doing your own background reading.
Rachel
OK, so who hasn't read "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown? If you haven't then try to because the novel is an amazing read. Everybody's talking about it. Yes, Ron Howard (director of A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, the Grinch) is even going to make a movie out of it starring Tom Hanks. Many scholars, academics and religious figures are talking about the novel (with a mixture of positive and negative comments) and if you've read the novel you know why.Simon Cox tries to delve into the history and truth of the controversial facts presented in Brown's novel. He shows us the places and paintings that appear in the novel that many of the readers of the book found fascinating to know more about. Now, I love the novel and I wanted to know more about it, but to God's honest truth, Cox does not do a very good job of this documentary in regards to what he's trying to claim to present as in delving "Inside the Da Vinci Code". Yes, there are some interesting facts that are conveyed, but it's all very poorly executed. To put it down to one word... B-O-R-I-N-G. Don't bother with this documentary if you've already seen Bowling For Columbine or Super Size Me because if you have seen these your expectations of documentaries, I believe, would be high right about now. This documentary will bore the pants off you. It bore it off me. And once I had finished watching it I was so angry. I had hardly understood Cox's thesis of this documentary and wondered why he did it in the first place if he knew he was going to make it as boring as it is. Yes, the info would have been very interesting if it were showed in a more entertaining manner. But this documentary does nothing to help in learning more about the Da Vinci code. Trust me. Don't bother.
