Audrey Tautou is Charming but Causting

Feasibly the most debatable film of this year is the adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Two time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks appears as Harvard symbologist who's out to realize "the biggest cover up in human history." The buildup that surrounded the picture died down as the movie got a lukewarm reactions from critics when it premiered in the recent Cannes Film Festival. In my humble opinion, Ron Howard don't do crappy pictures, but he doesn't do great pictures either. As for writer Akiva Goldsman, I am no longer pinning my optimism on his screenplays ever since he made Batman and Robin.

But personally I think the biggest subject of Howard's and Goldsman's crappy adaptation of the impressive best-seller is French actress Audrey Tautou, who I first saw few years ago in the French film Amelie. She was very cute in that character, plus the picture was entertaining. The Da Vinci Code was apparently Tautou's biggest break into Hollywood, but sadly her talent and loveliness was reduced to a simply talking penny. Playing French Cryptographer Agent Sophie Nevue, all that Tautou did for the entire two-or-more hours of the picture was throw questions that Hanks answered with a very long description, slash a sloppy-edited flashback sequence. I can forgive the cacophonic Parisian accent since she's playing a French character, and I can't visualize any other actress in the part, but the loose characterization of Sophie was just bothersome. If Howard and Goldsman will in any way get their hands on the Angels & Demons project, I'll be the first one to hit the streets out of dispute, but not just in the same line as with the Vatican bishops.