Okay, I have still not seen the movie, but I have now read the DaVinci Code book. So I guess I can speak about some of the debate with credibility now.
Overall, I still am of the opinion that the Church greatly overreacted to this phenomenon and probably is a large part of why the film posted such high ticket sales this weekend. At the same time, I can now see more why some Christians are especially worried about the book/film. "Why?" You ask. Simply because the book is not very good. It is a by-the-numbers airplane book designed to be picked up by a traveller, read on a business trip, and forgotten about when they go home. It is the equivilent of a movie with one long car-chase in it. Thus, the question remains why this particular book gained popularity. If the it isn't the plot, the characters, the use of language, or the pretty cover… that pretty much just leaves the ideas inside. Which implies that people are finding the ideas either challenging or convincing. And if it is because people are finding the ideas convincing… then I can see that scaring people, especially the professional clergy whose job it is to inform and educate the faithful… who generally are less interested in being educated than comforted or entertained.
However, that being said, I still think DVC will go down in church history as one of the great overreactions of our time, which is only going to encourage Hollywood to seek out more stories of this type. The book is not very good. The reaction of critics in general (and who has not heard about the jeers at Cannes?) seems to indicate that the movie is not especially good, either. And it appears the worst part of the movie is the problem of compressing all of the dialogue into only (?) two-and-a-half hours. i.e. The worst part of the movie is trying to absorb the ideas which the Church is so worried about. My prediction is that after a big opening weekend, it will quickly peter out to nothing. X-Men 3, Superman, and others will have much bigger opening weekends, and will be much more entertaining. And ultimately will leave the DVC as little more than an obscure question in the "Culture" section of Trivail Pursuit.
But in the end what will be the real lesson of DVC for our culture? Hollywood will interpret this as a big win for them. They took a movie about obscure religious ideas, spiced it with decent actors and director, left the plot as lame as they found it, and wound up with a blockbuster because the church and media did most of their advertising for them. They will see this as proof that "religious movies sell", but will NOT see it as a negative how many people were offended by the message of this film. They will think "Passion of the Christ did well and DVC did well. And DVC was a lot easier to get out there, because we did not have to get the okay of various religious groups - they already knew they'd be offended and that offense sold more tickets for us!" Thus, expect to see a lot less movies like PASSION OF THE CHRIST and PRINCE OF EGYPT - films that endorse an orthodox view of faith, which has to be vetted by various religious leaders - and expect to see a lot more LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and DVC movie. Hollywood will figure they'll sell just as well, and require less P.R. work.
And then, when the next DVC movie fails, the conclusion drawn will be that the "religious phase" of Hollywood movies is over. Directors will breathe a sigh of relief and go back to making Die Hard XVIII.
OK, Ward. Your turn now to tell me how wrong I am. :-)
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