The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Dan Brown is not Charles Dickens. He's no Brontë. No Stephen King. Even when it comes to thrillers, he's not as good as the likes of Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, or even (when he's on form) Dean Koontz. But that's not to say that his writing is terrible. He has amassed a huge fanbase over the years, and a lot of that stems from the success of The Da Vinci Code, a thriller that blended some fact with a whole lot of fiction in a way that intrigued readers and made them feel as if they were becoming a bit smarter while the plot became dumber and dumber. That kind of success is very easy to turn your nose up at (especially when you recognise the formula that Brown has used in almost every one of his books, and I have read, and enjoyed,  Deception Point, Digital Fortress, and three of his Langdon adventures, the ones that have so far been adapted into movies), but it also happens for a reason.  Brown knows how to thread together ludicrous plot points into something that is entertaining and thrilling.

You could say the same of director Ron Howard, who has been at the helm of numerous hit movies throughout his career. It's also easy to turn your nose up at many of his works, but they're often hugely popular for similar reasons. Howard is a pro when it comes to the technical side of things, and when it comes to crafting moments of cinematic emotional manipulation. Has he made any absolute classics? You can be the judge of that, but if he's not made one movie that you would always enjoy if you caught it randomly on the TV then I'd be very surprised.

So Howard directing the cinematic adaptation of the book that really made Dan Brown a household name was surely always a guarantee of a blockbuster hit. Put Tom Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon and what could possibly go wrong? Not much, actually, not much at all.

It's a simple enough premise, a straightforward journey complicated by numerous obstacles and twists. Langdon is called to a murder scene inside the Louvre, and that sets him on a quest to both clear his name and find the Holy Grail, which seems to have had its location hidden away in a number of coded messages over the years. Langdon is accompanied by Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and hopes to enlist the help of and old friend, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), as he tries to continue evading Captain Fache (Jean Reno), a self-flagellating albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), and others who are in hot pursuit.

Although Howard is in the big chair for this, a lot of the credit should be shared by everyone involved. This is a film that makes it clear just how much care and attention has gone into every department, from the props and design to the casting, and it's also got a gorgeous score by Hans Zimmer. Brown came up with the source material, but Akiva Goldsman does a superb job of making things more cinematic. The twists and turns are nicely handled, the exposition delivered in ways that don't let the film feel as if it has come grinding to a halt, and Hanks and Tautou are a winning pairing in the lead roles.

The supporting cast aren't half bad either. Reno works with an ambiguous character who may have an agenda of his own while he tracks our hero, McKellen has fun with a character who is oh-so-English that it's positively precious, and Bettany is an intriguing presence. Alfred Molina and Jürgen Prochnow also have good parts to play, with the latter involved in a set-piece that emphasises how silly some of the plotting can be, which doesn't necessarily make things any less fun.

It's very easy to mock and dismiss the Dan Brown books. It's also very easy to mock and dismiss the movies based on his books (and I know many complained at the time that Tautou seemed a bit wasted in her role, I think she remains a plus, thanks to her sheer screen presence). Maybe try to see how many positives there are, and simply accept the fact that being a crowd-pleasing work of art is almost always far removed from being the best work of art, but isn't any less worthy when it comes to having made people feel happy and entertained.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Flushed Away (2006)

The last film to be co-produced by Aardman Animation and DreamWorks Animation, Flushed Away has a reputation as a bit of a disappointment. That's how it seems anyway, when you consider the relatively poor box office result and the fact that few people mention it nowadays when listing favourite animated films. That's a bit of a shame, because Flushed Away remains a lively and witty adventure comedy, full of great vocal work, wonderful sight gags, and hilarious singing slugs.

Hugh Jackman is the voice of Roddy St. James, a pampered pet rat who enjoys his good life. But that is all thrown into disarray when his owners go on holiday and a sewer rat named Sid (Andy Serkis) finds his way into the house and decides to take it over for himself. In attempting to get rid of Sid, Roddy ends up in the toilet, and then . . . flushed away. Down in the sewer, completely out of his element, Roddy eventually teams up with a rat named Rita (Kate Winslet), the two aiming to return Roddy to his home and foil the deadly scheme of a rat-hating toad (Ian McKellen).

Directed by Sam Fell, who came up with the initial story idea, and David Bowers, Flushed Away works as well as it does thanks to the detailing of the underground city populated by the rats. It's a mini version of London, with plenty of puns and visual nods and gags, and there are plenty of items repurposed for the rodent citizens. It also has a pretty great script, written by a team of writers including the mighty sitcom masters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. You get memorable characters and numerous fun exchanges between them, although the weakest element may be the central strand showing the two leads always being pursued by henchmen of The Toad.

The animation throughout is lovely, although fans of Aardman may be slightly put off by the fact that this is computer-animated throughout. That doesn't make any difference to the character design work, or the attention to detail, but it does give it a different look to the typical stop-motion aesthetic that so often adds to the charm of their projects.

Jackman and Winslet do well in the lead roles, the former really ladling on the charming toff act as he is appalled by grime and nastiness around him and the latter being much more ready to get things done without any attempted airs and graces. McKellen makes an amusing villain, helped in his scheme by characters voiced by Bill Nighy, Shane Richie, and Jean Reno, who are all also very enjoyable in their roles. Serkis isn't really involved for many scenes, but he does just fine. And whoever did the sound work on those slugs, who first appear shrieking at the appearance of Roddy before popping up occasionally to show off their singing voices, deserves a big slap on the back. It's a fantastic addition to the movie, even if it is just a bit of nonsense.

I am sure that I will remain in the minority with my love for this movie for some time to come, but I encourage others to at least remember it exists, and maybe give it a rewatch with the knowledge that the sheen of computer animation does nothing to lessen the humour and creativity we've come to expect from Aardman over the years.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014)

Just to get up to speed, here is my review of the first and second movies in The Hobbit trilogy.

I was hesitant about this, the final, instalment of The Hobbit trilogy. It was, after all, stretching out the finale into something that I never really wanted to see onscreen. The big battle sequences in both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings books were always the dullest passages for me, and the movies have so far proven to be almost equally dull when depicting those scenes. Oh, they have the spectacle and grandiosity that makes them entertaining, but it all becomes hard to care about when you're just watching one army swarming around another.

Carrying on from where the previous movie left off, this cinematic adventure focuses on the trouble caused by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) when he gets to take his rightful place in the heart of the mountain that was previously home to a fierce dragon named Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch). It's not long until Thorin is afflicted with a sickness that lets greed and paranoia overrule his good nature, in turn losing him the loyalty of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his fellow dwarves, who could be named Prancer, Dancer, Blitzen, etc. for all the time they get on screen. All of this leads, inevitably, to the battle that makes up the main title. And that's about it.

There are many little moments to enjoy here. The attention to detail is wonderful, as it has been in every Tolkien-related movie that director Peter Jackson has had a hand in (first The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and now this lot). But details don't always add up to great cinema. Neither does spectacle and scale. They can stave off boredom, but aren't really anything without a decent script and characters that you care about. This is where the final Hobbit movie gets things sorely wrong.

It's easy to like Bilbo Baggins, and a relationship sketched out between elf Thauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner) is quite sweet, but nobody else stands out. Thorin is busy being warped by greed, Bard (Luke Evans) is heroic enough but a bit bland, Thranduil (Lee Pace) is as cold as ever in his singular mission to keep his people safe, and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has been bordering on self-parody for years. Billy Connolly adds some life to proceedings when he appears, as a dwarf named Dain, but it's too little too late at that point.

All of the performers do well enough with what they're given. They're just not given much, thanks to the weak script by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyen and Guillermo del Toro. The emphasis is clearly on action for this war-filled final chapter, but that is no excuse when the previous movies have always managed (or almost managed) to surround big action set-pieces with humour, warmth and characters that you don't mind hanging around with for so long. This feels like the longest movie in the series yet, despite being the shortest (until the inevitable wealth of deleted scenes are added back in, at any rate).

I'm not saying that this is a waste of your time. It's the end of an era, in some ways, and worth a trip to the cinema if, like me, you've seen all of the others on the big screen. I'm not saying that there aren't some great one-on-one fights that show some of the individual lives at stake. The final 30-40 minutes is full of solid action and great moments. It just comes along after 100 minutes of material that constantly verges on being mind-numbingly boring.

5/10

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