The+Da+Vinci+Code+-+Amy+S

=** The Da Vinci Code **= =By: Amy Stoddard= = = 

  The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a gripping stay-up-all-night read, that digs deep into the past of the Christian Church and reveals the "story" of the Holy Grail and the elusive Priory of Sion. On a trip to France, Robert Langdon, an American symbolist, is sent to the Louvre to interpret a murder of the one and only Jacques Sauniére. When he arrives is alerted that he is the prime suspect for the murder by Agent Sophie Neveu of the cryptology department, and is forced to flee from the French officials long enough to decipher Sauniére's code, and reveal the true killer. The movie however, changes the plot in many more ways than one, and leaves the watcher and reader with the infamous question: "WHY????" In the novel, Sophie and Langdon struggle to decipher the passwords of two cryptexes with the help of Sir Lee Teabing. Unlike the book, the movie cuts out the whole first cryptex, and in opinion, if they had not done so the movie would have been much better. The director also removed numerous parts of the plot that were less significant, like part of the discussion about Leonardo Da Vinci's fresco, The Last Supper, and Sophie an Langdon's trip to the King's College Library. Although this shortened the movie to a more reasonable time, it really detracted from this fabulous plot. The director also twisted the character of Bezu Fache, the leader of the murder investigation and a secondary antagonist, to a drastic point. Fache changed from being a police officer with his reputation on the line, to a psycho trying to defend his extremist religious cult. The director of the movie also, in my opinion, did a poor job of casting many characters to match those in the book. Sophie Neveu is among these people. Dan Brown describes Sophie as "a young woman... with a certain haunting certainty to her gait." I immediately envisioned a woman poised and confident, but in the movie she seems scared, helpless, and immature. Despite numerous, life changing twists that Dan Brown throws at her, this character always is brilliant, and ready to tackle the new tasks she is confronted with. In the movie, however, Sophie has many emotional breakdowns, and appeared to be less of a contributor in cracking Jacques' code than in the book. The character of Sir Lee Teabing was also less of a silly character in the movie than in the book, and more serious. Because Sir Teabing ends up betraying Sophie and Langdon, I suppose that the director decided to make him seem more suspicious. On the other hand, I liked Teabing's innocence during the first part of the book, because then the shock is more intense when he turns on Sophie and Langdon. On a better note, Robert Langdon was cast very well, and was exactly how I thought he would be like. He is cunning, clever, and knowledgeable, but not at all poised like Sophie.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The movie's setting was also darker and more haunted than I had envisioned in the book, and although this made the setting seem more dramatic, it also made it look less realistic. In the added scenes the director incorporated a variety of different settings that seemed quite corny, including crypts with rats and the like. However, many of the places Sophie and Langdon travelled to were accurately portrayed in the movie, and for that I give the director some props. <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Overall, the book was definitely better than the movie, and if you had to do one of the other, go read the book. Some say that whichever one, book or movie, you see or read first is the one you like the best, and that may be true, because one finds themself critiquing the faithfulness of the plot and other aspects of one versus the other. One piece of advice I will give you is to be careful: Dan Brown is no historian, and although his story may sound very convincing, his religious statements have little evidence behind them. Many critics say that this entire book is ridiculous and false, and that the reader shouldn't believe anything at all that the book mentions. I, however, enjoy that it gave me something to think about. Give this book a try. If you like action-packed, plot orientated thrillers, this is the book for you! <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 24pt;">[|Check Out the Trailer!] **