ahream

You can never trust professional critics. Really, you can’t. Shifty-eyed little buggers.

And it has never been more true than for "The Da Vinci Code." Roundly panned by every possible publication, which then all ran stories expressing surprise that the public ignored them and went to see it in droves anyway, “The Code” was an amusing little summer nugget of brain candy.

It’s not “Citizen Kane” or “Schindler’s List” or even one of the better Indiana Jones movies. (Although certainly superior to “Temple of Doom,” but what isn’t?) It won’t make you smarter or nicer or better in any way. But darn it, it’s a fun little romp.

They said it was confusing. I went with my husband who hadn’t read the book and a good friend who had, and none of us had any trouble following it. They said Tom Hanks was wooden. The character in the book* had all the depth of tissue paper, unremarkable in every way. Hanks made him likable, fallible and much more human than I expected. You didn’t even mind the ridiculous hair. They said the female lead had nothing to do. She beat up an albino, drove backwards through Paris traffic and looked fantastic doing it. What more do you want?

All in all, I say well worth the price of the Junior Mints you buy at the grocery store and smuggle inside your purse.

Also worth the price of contraband candy is “Over the Hedge.” I laughed like a mental patient off her meds. Yes, the story is one you’ve seen a thousand times. But there’s a talking squirrel that shoots Cheez Whiz out his nose, and that’s hard to beat.

An enthusiastic two thumbs up. Definitely going to be in my DVD collection soon.

*Like every other writer I know, I was not enamored with the quality of the writing of “The Code” in book form. The characters were cliched and the word-smithing was sloppy. But dang it all to heck if it wasn’t well plotted. No scene was wasted, and it never slowed down. Not an easy thing to accomplish. So unlike a lot of writers I know, I say Dan Brown deserves every penny he’s made. And should he like to share the wealth, I’d be happy to provide him with an address to send the cashier’s check...

ahream Dispatches from the City of Angels I'm a mystery writer living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my short story, "Running Venice," in the new anthology LAndmarked for Murder. Look for it in bookstores and on Amazon.com now. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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