The Da Vinci Code 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review
THE DA VINCI CODE is a hard movie to review, especially ten years after its initial release. When I think of THE DA VINCI CODE, I don’t think of the movie, I think of the book because in 2003, it was the only thing you heard about. We’ve seen millions of books hit supreme popularity over the years, but the hype around THE DA VINCI CODE was insane, to the point where even I read it and I almost always wait for the movie. Time has not been kind to the book and now it’s more of a punchline than a serious work of fiction, but one of the things that made the book enjoyable was that it was an interactive book where the reader could follow along with the hero Robert Langdon as he discovered clues about cherished paintings and unraveled mysteries of the Catholic church. For several reasons, the movie can’t recapture that fun and so the movie hit with a bit of a thud.
Langdon (Hanks, with obnoxiously long hair) is in Paris promoting his latest book when he gets word that the curator of the Louvre was just found brutally murdered. The lead detective on the scene, Fache (Jean Reno), is convinced Langdon was the murderer and sets him up to be arrested for the crime. Oblivious to the whole thing, Langdon is helped out by Sophie, who happens to be the granddaughter of the murdered curator. Together, Langdon and Sophie set out across Europe trying to solve the murder mystery, which leads to hidden clues, coverups and secret societies all set on protecting the mysteries of the Catholic church.
The movie carries the viewers along on the mystery moderately well, but everything felt dumbed down for moviegoers. I enjoyed hearing Langdon and Teabing (McKellen) debate the importance of clues or the facts of history, but that was the highlight in what should have been an ongoing discussion. The filmmakers missed an opportunity as Langdon and Sophie were traveling through Europe visiting the various churches and sacrificed the unraveling of more clues in favor of “action” sequences. The problem is that the action sequences were almost boring because Langdon isn’t a fighter or a soldier; he’s just a regular college professor that’s good with symbols.
The biggest issue with THE DA VINCI CODE was the long runtime, but a close second was Ron Howard’s insistence on trying to remove everything we like about Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. Both actors are incredibly likeable and charming, but here they’re just pawns along for the ride. It would have helped immensely if the audience liked and cared about the two heroes, but Ron Howard didn’t seem interested in establishing characters. Instead, he seemed more intent to get to the next section of the story, almost as if he was checking off a box to make sure he touched everything.
Dan Brown took a lot of liberties with history when writing the book and the filmmakers didn’t bother correcting anything. That works for those that are intelligent enough to distinguish fact from fiction, but I think that’s one of the reasons the book (an inadvertently, the movie) have been blasted so hard over the years. There are some facts mixed in, but what a book/movie like this should do is inspire you to do your own research. When you see or read something shocking, it’s perfectly okay to pick up a book and do some research about the topic. If this movie inspired people to do that and challenge what they thought was true, then that’s a great thing. But if it was used as gospel and taken as fact, then that’s troubling.
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: Almost everything I said about the ANGELS AND DEMONS 4K Ultra HD can be said here. Fans looking for a night and day improvement over the Blu-ray will be disappointed because the upgrades are very subtle. Like with Demons, THE DA VINCI CODE is a very darkly set film and the biggest improvements are in the black levels, which look more rich and deep in 4K and with HDR than they do on the Blu-ray. I did notice a nice improvement in detail when they visited the church in London, but again it’s a subtle improvement and something you’d only notice if you’re comparing both versions side by side.
Audio: We do get a nice Dolby Atmos track that is used efficiently.
There are no 4K exclusive special features, but it does include a Blu-ray of the film.
Just like with ANGELS AND DEMONS, this 4K Ultra HD of THE DA VINCI CODE does not include the theatrical and extended editions and instead only includes the theatrical. However, it does include the missing scenes as a special feature under deleted/extended scenes.
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