The DaVinci Code (UMD, 2006)

UMD's do not play in DVD players; they are for playing on PSP play stations.

This edition is a special one that offers rare features along with the title film.

Much has already been debated about whether the main precepts held out by Dan Brown's book, "The DaVinci Code," & Ron Howard's full-feature film based upon Brown's text, are true.

Who can know what happened 2000 years ago? Is anything written ever value-free, as in not created from a human mind loaded with influences that shape the very meanings of what is put into print or not?

"The DaVinci Code" is a film of terrific intrigue when viewed with an open mind to allow anything in the past that we simply cannot know to be possible. Thus, if an audience approaches this film without preconceived religious biases, "The DaVinci Code," poses quite an intriguing question.

But, if an audience brings to the film firm convictions that they know everything there is to know about ancient history, with particular religious biases, then "The DaVinci Code," is quite controversial.

The fact remains, however, the film itself is a top-notch thriller, with a terrific cast that has been expertly well directed.

The character who delivers the most intriguing or controversial lines of the script is Professor Teabing (Sir Ian Mckellen). Teabing is the central character who explains the basic tenents of 'the DaVinci code'. As a historian, Teabing retraces religious history dating back over 20 centuries, in a matter of a few minutes.

In particular, proposing the blood line of Jesus of Nazareth leads to a modern descendant. The master artist, Leonardo DaVinci, is linked to a group that has historically protected the descendants of Jesus. His code is painted in his masterpieces.

Opus Dei, an extremist sect of Catholicism that is best know for being masochistic in order to engage in self-inflicted wounds to "chastise" their bodies, as Jesus' was during crucifixtion, is exposed during the film. Opus Dei is portrayed as sinister & determined to hide, at all costs, that Jesus & Mary Magdalene were married & expecting a child at his death.

Tom Hanks plays the lead as a Professor of Symbology, Robert Langdon. Audrey Tautou plays the lead as a cryptologist, Sophie. Together, the two are caught up in a "heart-racing quest" as they attempt to discover what secrets may be hidden beneath ancient symbols & cryptics. When they combine their treacherous treasure hunt energies with Prof. Teabing's, what began as a murder mystery swiftly turns into a police chase from France to England & back to France.

Whatever position or mind set an audience approaches "The DaVinic Code" from cannot take the technically great artistic craftsmanship away from this film. Every time I view it, I find a new aspect in it that intrigues me.

The film has been crticized as if it were committing heresy. That simply isn't true. "The DaVinci Code" doesn't displace the value of Christianity; it makes it seem all the more important. Rather than imposing upon people of faith (like myself) an idea that threatens to make Jesus any less significant, by offering a possibility that a part of Jesus survives inspires hope in how treasured his blood line still remains.

Perhaps what inflames audiences of faith even more is that a woman, Mary Magdalene, is presented as the person Jesus chose to carry on as his successor. One reason that's controversial is because the Church still denies gender equality~