Year: 1998
Directed By: John Frankenheimer
Written By: J.D. Zeik and David Mamet
RYAN’S REVIEW
I had my entire post for this film nearly finished when I had an unfortunate snafu that erased everything I had done. That is as about as frustrating as an evening with this film has been.
To sum up what I had said before this movie is vague and hard to follow. Literally ten minutes pass in the beginning before you have any idea as to the direction of the movie. The sound quality is all screwed up where the dialogue is hard to hear and the action is explosive on your speakers and ears. This is a cool action movie but not in the Die Hard style I prefer.
This movie made it into the collection for one real reason and that is how awesome the car chase scenes are. The scene in which they steal the mysterious box features one of the greatest car chase scenes I have ever seen. The only other thing worth mentioning is how cool De Niro is as the American badass, Jean Reno as the French badass, and Stellan Skarsgard as the creepy European bad guy.
There is little else I had to say about this movie and I care even less now if this is a well put together post. I am disappointed to have lost my original copy but this was more or less what I had to say. This movie does have its moments but there are certainly better things you can do with your time.
Year: 2006
Directed By: Ron Howard
Written By: Dan Brown
RYAN’S REVIEW
When I sit down and give it some serious thought, I can’t really figure out why we own this movie. I think part of me felt compelled to see it when it came out because of its controversial nature. I think I later bought it because I found a good deal but in truth I do not really care for this film. I think it is a great movie made about a dull book. I have read the book and found it boring. I am interested in all the things here. Christian history and the conspiracies that revolve around it, a scary albino bad guy, and in the movie they cast Sir Ian McKellan. For all practical purposes this book and movie should be right up my alley but I just don’t think it is really good.
This movie is made by a great filmmaker in Ron Howard and it sports a great cast. Tom Hanks is the headliner here but I am actually talking about nearly everybody else when I say great cast. Tom Hanks has been on a downward spiral since losing the Academy Award for Cast Away. He has failed to make a difference for most of the past ten years and this movie is no exception to that. He has virtually no chemistry with Audrey Tautou, who is equally as bad in the film. Paul Bettany however is unbelievable as the albino Silas. He is scary in a way I did not know he was capable of. His performance actually gave me hope that he would be cast as the Joker in The Dark Knight before Ledger was cast. Jean Reno is great and appropriately cast as the French commanding police officer. Alfred Molina was a good choice to play the Archbishop. I think that Sir Ian McKellan makes every movie he is in better and we have to cheerish everything he continues to gives us at this point in his career, he is 72.
I think the information in this film and story is very interesting but I don’t find the story itself to be up to par. I don’t really like the character of Robert Langdon and I think it is ridiculous to treat this Harvard professor as a murder suspect when you can easily verify his alibi. People argued about this film to no end too and for what? Yeah all the info in the book and movie wasn’t completely accurate. Go figure, you picked it up off a shelf labeled fiction. I think what bothers Christians the most is that it brought up enough that was true and in the end of the day they really don’t know enough about the history of their own religion. I am no person to speak on such things though, and my opinion should be of little significance here.
This is a good movie, Ron Howard is worth his weight in gold, but I don’t really think it is worth your time. By now no matter who you are you have heard of this film or book and know what it is about. You either saw it or you didn’t for reasons that were your own. I am telling you it isn’t worth your time not for any personal motive but only because I actually don’t think the movie was that great and I’m questioning why I own it.
AMBER’S REVIEW
I am not a fan of this movie. I know that its popularity reigns from the popularity of the book that it is based on, but I find it boring for the most part. I think that I used to like it when we first bought the movie, but after watching it again for this post, I don’t even know why it is in our collection. In theory, it should be a great film. Ron Howard is extremely talented and I usually like the majority of the projects that he is a part of. Tom Hanks is also one of my favorite actors, but in this film I find him boring, That would be my review for this film. Boring. It isn’t really worth your time. If you happen to be religious, it just might piss you off. I don’t have that problem, but nevertheless this movie is not worth the time.
The Movie Snobs 