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Critic Reviews

Even as a visual aid, The Da Vinci Code is a deep-dyed disappointment. Paris by night never looked murkier.

... a first-rate thriller ...

If only it were allowed to be merely a cheesy romp, an Indy Jones movie with more sophisticated stereotypes and far less humor. But apparently this is no mere pop novel-turned-high-hat megaplex product.

-Michael AtkinsonFull Review

What's wrong with The Da Vinci Code can be summed up in one word: everything!

-Rex Reed

I won't go so far as to recommend it, and I can't imagine ever wanting to see it again.

-Andrew SarrisFull Review

The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith.

-Anthony Lane

One could classify The Da Vinci Code as diverting, but it has sidestepped greatness by a wide margin.

-James BerardinelliFull Review

The Da Vinci Code the movie suffers the sin of being afraid to make the same kind of mischief with its sacred text -- Brown's book -- that the author did with a certain other blockbusting bestseller.

-Geoff PevereFull Review

Ultimately, it's a work of fiction that, translated to another medium, seems to have lost its punch.

-Moira MacDonaldFull Review

Ron Howard doesn't so much solve The Da Vinci Code as preserve it under glass. It's a bloodless best-seller adaptation, competent but uninspiring, rather like the vast bulk of Howard's long filmography.

-Roger MooreFull Review

Absent is the pure guilty joy of sequential puzzle-solving; instead of participating in the hunt, we're shoved off to the side as a couple of crashing boors do it for us.

-Amy BiancolliFull Review

Like a two-bit philosopher working the wrong side of the stone, Howard has managed to turn gold into lead.

-Rick GroenFull Review

On film, The Da Vinci Code is not so much a fascinating puzzle as a prolonged slog through material that resists the screen.

-Robert Denerstein

In a marketplace rife with guides for idiots, dummies and the rest of us, this movie stands as the novel's priciest CliffsNotes.

-Lisa KennedyFull Review

As a film derived from a book, The Da Vinci Code isn't a fiasco on the order of The Bonfire of the Vanities nor is it a triumph a la The Lord of the Rings. Instead, it's an acceptable but uninspired simulacrum.

-Ty BurrFull Review

The most controversial thriller of the year turns out to be about as exciting as watching your parents play Sudoku.

-Ann HornadayFull Review

... it's a thriller with a lot of explaining to do, which it does, endlessly, while we wait for an actual movie to break out.

-Bruce Newman

If there's anything to be learned from this dud, it's that when you decide to adapt an explosive property like The Da Vinci Code, playing it safe isn't safe ...

-David EdelsteinFull Review

The movie doesn't have the pulp excitement that the author's gimmicky storytelling generated. In fact, it often has no excitement at all.

-Philip WuntchFull Review

Howard takes a strangely respectful approach to the overheated mysticism of the novel, turning the film into that most boring of genres: the pious blockbuster.

-Dana StevensFull Review

Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman struggle mightily to cram as much as possible of Dan Brown's labyrinthine thriller into a 2-hour-28-minute running time, resulting in a movie both overstuffed and underwhelming.

-David AnsenFull Review

Rather than being intriguingly provocative, the whole thing comes off as just a rather clumsy provocation.

-Stephen WhittyFull Review

Here's the gospel on The Da Vinci Code: It's a total snore.

-Tom LongFull Review

These offerings by Howard and Goldsman are not enough to turn a page-turner into something that survives and transcends a media phenomenon, in the way of such bad novels as The Godfather and Jaws.

-Terry LawsonFull Review

The movie is so nervous about offending anyone that it's hardly any fun.

-Jami BernardFull Review

The film lacks the deductive appeal of the book -- the way it compelled you to match wits with the protagonists. Instead, what might have been a cerebral treasure hunt bogs down in a miasma of nonstop exposition.

-Peter RainerFull Review

The truth is that The Da Vinci Code is a pretty-good-but-who-cares effort, a moderately interesting diversion that will hold audiences in the moment but leave them unmoved and unchanged.

-Mick LaSalleFull Review

All of the actors seem to be on overacting pills save for Hanks, who may yet rue the day he ever stepped off that giant piano and into big, self-important blimps like this.

-Jan StuartFull Review

Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller is punishingly long, dramatically overwrought and fatally short on the thrills we demand from summertime blockbusters.

-Colin CovertFull Review

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