Da Vinci Code

Well... I went and saw it today and I have to admit that the critics are WRONG!!

OK... sure... Maybe Tom Hanks has gone to the Keanu Reeves School of Facial Expressions to learn how to display none at all but this was only pointed out to me afterwards as I quite enjoyed the performances of all involved.

So, who should see it and who shouldn't....

- If you are someone who is thin-skinned about your religion and you're a christian: the you should NOT see it.

- If you are someone who is a devout anti-christian who wants to see the fall of the catholic church: you're going to be disappointed.

- If you're someone who is going to pick on little things through the movie like whether someone should be written in Greek or Hebrew: wake up to yourself and realise that you're dealing with a movie that is based on a fictional book and was produced by Hollywood. Sometimes they have to dumb it down to get bums on seats. If you can keep your analytical mind on a chain: Go see it.

- If you're a typical airhead that just goes for action movies and can't maintain a philosophical discussion past "See Spot Run", go and see the next Slow & The Ridiculous (TF&TF) movie (in Tokyo yet!) - it's more your mental pace.

- If you're up for a movie that makes you think a bit and you're into conspiracy theories, then it's a good one for you.

- If you're a muslim who thinks that anyone who worships another god is someone who should die while themselves worshipping a paedophile: Go fuck yourself. Nobody cares about what you think or want. Don't laugh - maybe there'll be a movie soon about the REAL Mohammed. Get ready to burn something else you COWARDS!

As for me, I enjoyed it because I used to have a problem with christianity and religion in general in my younger days and read everything I could on the subject while often referring to the bible as a book of fairy tales. I'm still not a christian but I do believe in what I call "The 7 Commandments" (the first 3 don't apply to me) and the bible does contain some good lessons to help one through life.

I've not read Dan Brown's book but I did read 'Bloodline of the Holy Grail' by Laurence Gardner (the one in the lawsuit where Dan Brown is being sued for plagiarism). There are quite a few things that match up with what I've read over the years and at least they got it right in the movie that a pentacle does NOT go hand-in-hand with devil worship (but on the other hand, they did get it wrong in saying it was a pentacle - it was a pentagram. It only becomes a pentacle when there is a circle around the 5-pointed star.)

If you have a little bit of knowledge and you're not afraid to suspend reality for a while - go see it. At worst, checking out the French bird in it has it's own redeeming features :)